Scribner's Magazine

SCRIBNER’S MAGAZINE

July, 1912 Volume 52, Issue 1

Important notice

The MJP’s digital edition of the July 1912 issue of Scribner’s Magazine (52:1) is incomplete. It lacks the front and back covers of the magazine, the magazine’s table of contents, and all of the advertising that, in a typical issue of the magazine, could run for a hundred pages and appeared both before and after the magazine contents reproduced below. Because we were unable to locate an intact copy of this magazine, we made our scan from a six-month volume of Scribner’s (kindly provided to us by the John Hay Library, at Brown), from which all advertising was stripped when it was initially bound many years ago.

For a better sense of what this magazine originally looked like, please refer to any issue in our collection of Scribner’s except for the following five incomplete issues: December 1910, January 1911, August 1911, July 1912, and August 1912.

If you happen to know where we may find an intact, cover-to-cover hard copy of any of these five issues, we would appreciate if you would contact the MJP project manager at: [email protected] Drawn by Jules Guerin. STATION SQUARE, FOREST HILLS GARDENS, LONG ISLAND. —" Modcl Towns in America," page 20- SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE

VOL. LII JULY, 1912 NO. 1

THE GARDEN CITIES OF ENGLAND

By Frederic C. Howe

BELATED transit facilities cities of Great Britain, have vainly strug• made the city what it is. gled with the housing problem. They have The 'bus, horse-car, electric built municipal dwellings, have tried to con• trolley, and suburban train trol private tenements, but the inrush of failed to keep pace with ur• people swamped their most ambitious ef• ban growth. Men had to forts. live near their work. The city grew in The garden city made its appearance the only direction open to it, toward the about eight years ago. It marks the begin• heavens. It assumed a perpendicular in• ning of a change in the industrial, social, stead of a horizontal form. Inadequate and domestic relations of society. It means transit intensified high land values. Bad that cities are to be rebuilt, that civiliza• means of transit and high land values made tion is to change its forms, that the city of the slum. The city would have been a very the future will be a far different thing from different thing had transportation permitted what it is to-day. It will occupy a very wide it. It would have spread over a wide area. area. It will be beautiful, healthy, com• Transit has begun to catch up with the fortable. It will urbanize the country. This city. It has opened up the country. In in turn will ruralize the city. consequence the city is again being trans• The garden city, too, is a shifting of em• formed: in this country by the suburban phasis from property to people, from the communities which encircle it; in Belgium individual to the community. The motive by the sale of cheap workingmen's tickets which inspires it is the maximum of com• on state-owned railroad lines which enable fort, convenience, and happiness at the the workingman to travel twenty-four miles minimum of financial and personal cost. for two cents and live on the farms and in It marks a widening of community rights the far outlying villages. and an enlargement of community ser• In England improved transit has given vices. It means the building of the city by birth to the garden suburb. It has made the city itself, from the foundations up• possible the garden city. This is England's ward and from centre to circumference. latest, possibly her greatest, contribution to The garden-city idea has developed with the city problem, to the housing of the great rapidity. It has not yet solved the workingman, the clerk, and the moderately city problem, nor has it stamped out the well-to-do classes of the great cities. The slum. It has shown how this can be done discovery came none too soon. For the however. And that is the first step to the city is sapping the vitality of Great Britain. solution of the problem. Birmingham is In that country four people out of five live planning a suburb of three thousand seven under urban conditions. And statesmen hundred acres. Manchester has offered and reformers have stood aghast at the de• prizes for the best plans for developing a cay in the physical and moral fibre of the large outlying area and the building of cot• nation, due to the disease-breeding condi• tages to rent from seven and one-half to tion of the tenements and slums. London, ten dollars a month. Forty architects and Liverpool, Glasgow, Sheffield, all the large landscape gardeners submitted plans to this

Vol.. LII.—i The Garden Cities of England competition. Suburban-building and gar• creasing land values which the building of den-village projects are being carried out at the community creates. The garden city Romford, a suburb of London, at York, is in effect its own ground landlord. In• Liverpool, Bristol, Hull, Rochdale. Ilford, directly it is a house-builder and house- Harborne, Ealing, Earlsworth, and else• owner. It operates through a private cor• where. These projects are being pro• poration which owns the land, pledged by moted by cities, co-operative companies, its charter to limit its dividends to five per and private individuals. They have been cent on the capital actually invested, and made possible by the success of the garden to use the speculative increase of land val• city and the enactment of a national town- ues for the community. planning law in 1909, which empowers These are the physical foundations of the local authorities to develop the territory garden city. To these are added, where surrounding a city as a comprehensive necessary, the adjustment of transit to whole. The helplessness of the English near-by cities so that rapid communication cities, baffled for years by the tenement will be possible, as well as the ownership or problem, by high disease and mortality a close working arrangement with the water, rates and increasing poor taxes, has been gas, and electricity supply. These form the changed to hope and enthusiasm. In a plumbing of the city. They are essential few years' time a score of public and semi- to the life, comfort, and convenience of the public garden developments have sprung people and the promotion of industry. up in various parts of the country. Most The main difference between the ordi• of these undertakings are tributary to a nary city and the garden city is this: the city. But all of them mark an abandon• former is left to the unrestrained license of ment of the barrack-like tenements and speculators, builders, owners, to a constant monotonous cottages of a few years ago conflict of public and private interests; the and the substitution of beautifully planned latter treats the community as a unit, with suburbs, designed by landscape artists, out rights superior to those of any of its indi• in the country where land is cheap and gen• vidual members. One is a city of unre• erous provision for health, recreation, and lated, and for the most part uncontrolled, beauty is possible. For the housing of a private property rights; the other is a com• people is a land as well as a transportation munity intelligently planned and harmoni• problem. A recognition of these economic ously adjusted, with the emphasis always on foundations underlies all of the new hous• the rights to the community rather than on ing projects. the rights of the individual property owner. The garden communities of Letchworth, There are three types of garden cities: Hampstead, Bournville, and Port Sunlight one, the self-contained industrial communi• have demonstrated that clean, wholesome, ty like Letch worth; two, the garden suburb, comfortable cottages are possible for every• like Hampstead; and three, the factory vil• body and at the very low rent of from five lage built about a manufacturing plant by dollars a month upward. They have de• some large employer. Port Sunlight and monstrated too that life is lengthened, the Bournville are the best examples of the lat• death and infant mortality rate is reduced, ter. All have the same underlying features and labor is more efficient in these open-air of control by some superior community au• communities than in the cities, and that thority. working people gladly follow their employ• The idea originated with Mr. Ebenezer ers to these more attractive surroundings. Howard, who published a book on garden In the building of garden villages three cities in 1898 entitled " To-Morrow." things are recognized as fundamental: one, From this dream the garden city took form, the purchase of a large area of low-priced and finally, in 1903, Letchworth was incor• agricultural land in advance of any devel• porated. It differs from the other garden opment; two, the permanent control of the cities in being an independent city with a whole area, as well as of streets, open spaces, complete municipal life of its own. It is and building regulations by the corporation an industrial city like Gary, Ind., with all or the city; and three, the reservation by the the functions and activities of a self-con• community, through the private corpora• tained community. And just as Gary was tion promoting the enterprise, of the in• built by the United States Steel Corporation The Garden Cities of England as a convenient place for the making of iron vailing winds so that the dust and smoke and steel products, just as it was planned in will be carried away from the city, while gas detail with reference to water and rail trans• and electricity are furnished at such a low portation, with provision for the needs of cost as almost to dispense with coal as a mills and furnaces, so Letchworth was fuel. Electricity for power is sold at a flat planned as the home of all kinds of in• rate of three cents per unit and at two cents dustries, with provision for the needs of after the first hundred hours of maximum workingmen, so that they would be healthy, demand has been reached. The price for and in consequence, efficient, so that well- light is sixteen cents per unit for the first to-do people would want to live there, so hundred hours and three cents thereafter. that manufacturers would find cheap build• Gas is sold for domestic purposes at sev• ing sites with cheap light, power, water, enty-two cents per thousand cubic feet, and and fuel. Unlike Gary, Letchworth was for fuel at from sixty-six to forty-eight cents, planned for all its people, for the factory- according to the amount used. worker as well as the factory-owner; for Manufacturers are lured to Letchworth dividends in human health and happiness by cheap land. Factory sites are leased as well as on property. There was this rather than sold, the leases running for difference, however. In Gary all the land ninety-nine or nine hundred and ninety- values created by the city went to the pro• nine years and at from fifty dollars a year moters of the city. In Letchworth they per acre upward. This enables one-story go to the city itself. factories to be erected with ample light. Letchworth lies thirty-four miles to the The annual ground rent for factories in Lon• north-west of London. It is but fifty min• don frequently amounts to five thousand utes from the city by train. It was pro• dollars an acre, with taxes amounting to moted by a private corporation, like any from thirty to fifty per cent of the annual other land company. Shares of stock were assessed value of the factory. Four thou• sold, but with the provision that the returns sand dollars a year ground rent per acre is of shareholders should be limited to five moderate in London, while in some sections per cent on the capital outlay. Three it rises to twenty-five thousand dollars a thousand eight hundred and eighteen acres year. Here is an economic motive of the of farming land were acquired, of which most potent kind to attract manufacturers one thousand two hundred acres were laid to Letchworth. In four years' time thirty acres have been built upon by factories, out as a town. The remaining two thou• many of which have been brought from sand six hundred acres are for small agri• London. The industries established are cultural holdings. for the most part printing and publishing, The entire area of Letchworth was the manufacture of hardware tools and planned by expert architects and land• agricultural implements. There are some scape artists. It was designed as L'Enfant potteries and engineering contractors. planned Washington before a house was erected or a road was built. It was planned Letchworth has grown with great rapid• as German cities lay out their suburbs, as ity. In seven years' time the population has Louis XIV and Napoleon III planned the increased from four hundred to seven thou• outskirts of Paris. The railway station sand. There are fifty shops and over twelve opens into a plaza which opens again into a hundred houses, with hotels, clubs, churches, broad roadway, with the town square and banks, etc. Many persons have adopted city hall in the distance. Shops, hotels, Letchworth as a retired place of residence, churches, and clubs are located near the while a few commute back and forth to city's centre on streets planned for the pur• London each day. Rents are cheap, while pose. Out from the town square broad houses include the charm and beauty of a roadways radiate each with a vista of the country estate. public buildings. Town-planners unite in treating the Factories are located by the railway streets as fundamental to proper city build• tracks. They are distant from the residen• ing. And the roadways of Letchworth tial area and are shut off from the rest of the (there are no streets) are comfortable, town by the contour of the ground. They tree-lined, and of the greatest variety. Open are located away from the direction of pre• spaces greet one at intervals. Not as arti- The Garden Cities of England ficial afterthoughts, but as perfectly natural amazing how cheaply and how well people places of rest, recreation, and play. Many can be housed where land is cheap and con• of the cottage streets are narrow. They are struction work is done at wholesale by per• not designed for traffic; they are planned sons interested in good workmanship and rather for quiet, retired living. There is gen• the building of homes rather than in specu• erous provision for play. There is a golf lation. course of sixty-nine acres and half a dozen So rapid has been the growth of Letch- greens, suggestive of the village greens of old. worth that men are now dreaming of the There are tennis-courts, cricket-fields and possibility of a tax-free city, the expenses commodious sites for school-houses. There of the town to be paid out of the increasing is an open-air swimming-pool, while or• value of the land. The land cost but two chestras, choral societies, dramatic and de• hundred dollars an acre, or seven hundred bating societies have been formed. and fifty thousand dollars for the total Building restrictions are imposed by the estate. In seven years the value of the corporation on the style of houses that may land has increased by one million one hun• be erected. Their distance from the street dred and forty thousand dollars. And is also fixed. This is not done arbitrarily: after deducting the cost of road building, there is no real interference with personal water plant, sewers, and all other capital liberty. But each house must conform to expenditures, there is still an unearned in• the whole. It must harmonize with its sur• crement of six hundred and sixty thousand roundings, must be an integral part of the dollars, and only a small part of the land is town rather than architecturally at war with developed. This increase does not go to it. This protects property instead of in• the corporation, it does not go to private l'uring it. It prevents the intrusion of alien stockholders at all; it goes to the community business, the erection of barracks or mo• for the reduction of rates or the promotion notonous speculative houses designed only of various community undertakings. for sale or rent. There can be no slums Hampstead Garden Suburb, another gar• or overcrowding in Letchworth, for the den city, is not an industrial community. maximum number of houses is limited to It is a suburb not unlike Brookline, Mass., twelve to the acre, while the larger houses Germantown, Pa., Evanston, I11., or any have from one-half to two and one-half acres one of the exclusive residential suburbs about them. In the industrial cities houses which surround our larger cities. It is are built thirty, forty, and even fifty to the neither an exclusive suburb nor a housing acre. experiment for the very poor. It is a resi• Surrounding the town are two thousand dential community designed for govern• six hundred acres of land owned by the ment employees, clerks, mechanics, car• corporation, to be rented for truck garden• penters, and persons of substantial means. ing, poultry and fruit farms, and agricul• The suburb is located close by Hampstead tural purposes. This, as the builders say, Heath, an easy half-hour's ride by the tube is "a lung around the town." It will serve from the centre of London. Train service to keep down the cost of living; it will offer is frequent and rapid, so that the commu• small farms to those who desire them. nity is in fact a part of London. This is the only conscious attempt by any Mrs. Canon Barnett conceived of the of the garden cities to co-ordinate rural life Hampstead suburb in 1905. She interested and agriculture with the city. as incorporators Earl Grey, the Earl of Provision is made for workingmen's Crewe, the Bishop of London, Sir John houses, which are erected by the corpora• Gorst, Sir Robert Hunter, and others in the tion or by co-operative tenant societies. project. They acquired two hundred and These cottages, which are wonderfully artis• forty-three acres of land from Eton College tic, rent at from S4.64 to $10 a month. for a garden suburb "to preserve for Lon• Each cottage has a garden and is supplied don, unspoiled by vulgar houses and mean with plumbing and other conveniences. streets, the foreground of the beautiful coun• They are far different from the working- try that forms the western boundary of the men's cottages of the industrial city, far heath, and to create a residential quarter different even from the model dwellings for Londoners where the comfort of the in• erected bv the municipal authorities. It is habitants and the beauty of their surround- Leys Avenue, a typical shopping street, Letchworth.

Old English village type preserved. ings should not be sacrificed to the greed of ample of co-operation as opposed to indi• the land-owner or the necessities of the spec• vidualism in city building. ulative builders." It is amazing what a beautiful thing a city Two thousand two hundred dollars an can be made, amazing how the sixteenth- acre was paid for the undeveloped land. It century village can be brought back to life was planned by expert landscape gardeners and its charm reproduced. The roadways and architects for a community of from ten in Hampstead ignore right angles. They to twelve thousand people. The village has avoid regularity in every way. They me• grown so rapidly that in 1909, one hundred ander about aimlessly, comfortably, follow• and twelve additional acres were secured, ing the natural contour and advantages and now the whole territory lying about of the land. Nor are they of equal width. the historic Heath is being developed into The residential streets are narrow. They a model garden community. are designed to discourage traffic and keep A visit to Hampstead is a challenge to it on the main thoroughfares. The road• our ideas of city building and architecture. ways curve or come to a sudden stop. They It is a commentary on our intelligence in open into unexpected places, and are so ar• the most important of all industries, the ranged that one always secures a vista of building and making of homes. The pro• some attractive cottage or garden. Many of the streets are closed. They come to an moters were not actuated by the desire for abrupt end in a little enclosed square. commercial profits, although there is no They are all lined with shade trees—cherry, charity, no philanthropy about the enter• acacia, maple, and birch. There are no prise. Nor is there any interference with fences or back walls in front or in the rear. the free life of the people. The Garden The gardens are surrounded by hedge-rows Suburb is the substitution of a community of sweet briar, yew, holly, and wild rose. for a property sense, of a city interested in Every garden in the place is filled with the comfort, convenience, beauty, and happiness greatest variety and profusion of flowers. rather than in the industrial license of in• The owners all seem to be in competition dividual builders. Hampstead is an ex- 5 The Garden Cities of England with one another. The name garden city There is the greatest variety in styles of cot• is no exaggeration. tages as well as in building material. Some The architecture is an abrupt change of the cottages are connected. Others are from the monotonous rows of close-built semi-detached, while others are isolated vil• barrack-like cottages of the north of Lon• las. All are in harmony, just as are the don. The variety, the color effects, the flowers which grow in greatest profusion in beauty of the individual cottage and of the the rear gardens and the front yards. group are all a commentary on the assump• Building restrictions are fixed in perpe• tion that architecture is bound up with in• tuity by the corporation. It retains title to dividual freedom. Cottages costing from the land so as to be able to control the nature

Workmen's cottages, Tylton Avenue. Letchworth. one thousand five hundred dollars and up• and style of building. This would be diffi• ward and that rent for eight dollars a month cult if it parted with the title. Permanent compare in beauty and comfort with those tenure, however, is secured to builders by that rent for fifty or sixty dollars a month leases which run from ninety-nine to nine with us. They are designed with the ut• hundred and ninety-nine years. Rentals most care by the best of architects and in are very reasonable. All of the street-plan• harmony with the village idea. The beauty ning and street-building work, including of these garden cottages with their stuccoed sewers, pavements, sidewalks, water, gas, walls and gray and orange tiles, with porches and electric-light connections, is done by the and projecting eaves, compels one to ques• corporation when the streets are originally tion if ordinary house-building is not a neg• built. In this way the cost is kept at a mini• lected art and whether we are not on the mum and the nature of the construction is threshold of a new development in domestic controlled. The width of roadways is fixed architecture. It may be that architecture is in harmony with the general plan. So is by nature a public rather than a purely the location of business and possible factory private function and that some sort of State sites. Provision is made for out-of-door rec• supervision or public direction of buildings reation and play, while every natural beauty may do for it what it does for music, the op• or vista is preserved for the community itself. era, the drama. and the fine arts in Europe. There is an open-air natatorium in the centre Each street is different from the other. of the town. It is banked on all sides by Workmen's cottages, Gix Road, Letchworth. masses of flowers. There is a community ed as part of the city, to be done by it as a mat• club, with opportunity for all kinds of indoor ter of course. Shops are located on the main and outdoor sports. An institute for lectures, highway. They are detached from the vil• classes, and educational purposes is being lage proper. All of these provisions are made constructed, while a beautiful village inn is by the garden city in advance of any building planned for the near future. These are treat• and in contemplation of future growth.

Girl's club, Letchworth. The Garden Cities of England

Hampstead has grown rapidly. It is but tects the community from the land specu• six rears old, but already has a population lator, so a similar kind of co-operative of five thousand people. The value of the corporation, the "copartnership tenants," improvements amount to three million dol• so-called, protects the community from bad lars, while the land has advanced in value buildings and undesirable tenants. Ex• from five hundred and thirty-four thousand perience shows that some individual on a dollars to seven hundred and fifty thousand street or in a community will sell or lease dollars. As in Letchworth and Port Sun• his property to undesirable people. He will permit it to decay, or, as frequently happens, he builds an apartment house, a garage, stable, or factory which ruins the neighborhood. Home owners would be glad to pay for insurance against this sort of thing, against a slovenly or in• different tenant, against unfair use. The loss in values in every American city due to changes of this kind are incalculable. It is this that keeps resi• dential values in a con• stant state of transition. Protection from this sort of thing is a community concern. Individuals too, espe• cially workingmen, are deterred from becoming home owners because of the uncertainty of em• ployment and residence. Individual architecture, building, and financing is difficult and costly. Even in America we have

Hampstead Way and Finchly Road, Garden City, Hampstead. become a nation of city tenants. light, the death rate is very low. being but The copartnership tenants corporation 4.2 per 1,000, while the infant mortality is a device for making home ownership rate is but 66 per 1.000 as compared with easy, for protecting the tenant as well as the 140 per 1,000 in the near-by London tene• community, for securing the highest talent ment suburbs. and most economical method of build• The garden city is planned to make the ing and for insuring the workman, when most of all the natural advantages of the he moves to another town, that he will not site. The best views are retained as com• lose his investment. It is also a guarantee mon views. Lots and streets are planned against depreciation and changing use. For so that each house will command the great• the copartnership tenants is a house-build• est amount of sunlight, while sites for parks, ing and house-owning and house-managing playgrounds, the locations of schools, public corporation. It builds houses by wholesale. buildings, clubs, etc., are selected so that It can employ the best of talent and plan its the whole community can enjoy them. building with the same vision of the rights Just as the garden city corporation pro• of the community that the garden city does. Asmuns Place, Garden City, Hampstead.

Showing serpentine road closed at end to discourage traffic and insure quiet. Quadrangle designed by Parker & Unwin for aged poor. Built by Hampstead tenants. Rent of small apartment 78 cents per week.

The values of its houses are community are salable the same as in any other corpo• values. Tenants do not own the particular ration. This gives the tenant-owner a pe• house they happen to live in. but a share cuniary interest in the whole village. in the entire group. They are tenants in These tenant corporations sell stock to a copartnership series of houses, in which tenants, who must subscribe for at least their rent is fixed and their stockholdings two hundred and fifty dollars, which is pay-

Linnel Close, Garden City, Hampstead. Showing emphasis on village green idea and generous provision of open spaces. Wordsworth Walk, Garden City, Hampstead. able in instalments. Stock is also sold to credited on the tenants' stock subscription outsiders. The houses rent at a price suffi• until it is paid up. cient to yield five per cent on their cost, By this arrangement the tenant enjoys while any surplus earned goes back, not to every advantage of ownership, and at the the stockholders, but to the tenants in pro• same time is protected from many risks. portion to their rent. These earnings are Capital is obtained at low cost. So is pro-

Guy Dawber's houses on Willigied Way, Garden City. Hampstead. The Park. Bournville.—There is play in the

time the movement has grown until in 1910 there were fourteen such so• cieties, owning six thou• sand six hundred houses with an investment of four million dollars. When the present estates are completed the com• panies will have an in• vestment of ten million dollars. Many of the dwellings of Hampstead Garden city were built by tenant companies. In three years four hundred and Front gardens, Bournville. fourteen cottages had Gardens everywhere. been erected at a cost of fessional, managerial, and building skill. one million two hundred and fifty thousand Investment in a house becomes like stocks dollars. The demand for houses cannot be or bonds. In addition, the interest of the satisfied. Tenant investors are compelled tenant in the whole corporation leads to a to wait as much as six months for houses. watchful care of the entire community. From the outset the number of houses has The first copartnership tenants was that been limited to not more than twelve to the of Ealing Tenants Limited, organized in acre, or from one-half to one-fourth the num• 1903. with sixty acres of land and fifty ber usually built by speculators. Where thousand dollars capital. In seven years' possible, houses are built with a southern

12 the most generous provision for garden city.

exposure so as to insure every bit of winter sun• shine. This is also fol• lowed in the arrangement of rooms. Cottages rent at from five dollars a month upward, while some expensive villas are planned to rent for as high as six hundred and fifty dollars a year. In 1910 the tenants of the Hamp• stead Tenants Corpo• ration received back as co-operative dividends about seven per cent on their rental. This was Small semi-detached cottages, Bournville. after the payment of all dividends, provision for depreciation, and maintenance, and the blesse oblige, of benevolent industrial feu• setting aside of a substantial reserve fund. dalism on the part of Lever Brothers, Tenancy is permanent at the rent fixed on manufacturers of soap. The village, which entrance, but the management reserve the has a population of three thousand, lies right to exclude any tenant who is disor• about five miles from Liverpool, across the derly or otherwise mismanages the estate. river Mersey, near the city of Birkenhead. Port Sunlight differs from Letchworth or The company loses one hundred and Hampstead in being a purely private busi• twenty-five thousand dollars a year upon ness enterprise. It is an expression of no• the undertaking. The cost of the village 13 The Triangle," Bournville. was about two million five hundred thousand efficiency; for the improved health and dollars, upon which investment the company condition of the employees, due to better receives no return, the rents being only suf• homes and the open-air life, yields a return ficient to maintain the cottages, streets, that of itself pays for the investment. grounds, and activities of the village. This Port Sunlight is in some ways the most loss is a contribution by the company to beautiful of all the garden cities. Possibly

Shopping centre, Bournville. The Garden Cities of England 15 it is the contrast with the tenements of velopment of his own, his wife's, and chil• the near-by cities of Liverpool and Birken• dren's faculties, so as to make them healthy head that makes it appear so. The effect and strong and long-lived." of the village is apparent in the men, the He also appreciates the relation of proper women, and the children, and especially in living conditions to industrial efficiency. the children. The people of Port Sunlight He says: "Business cannot be carried on by are clean, healthy, strong, and happy. The physically deficient employees any more than cottages are surrounded by gardens and war can be successfully waged by physically hedges; the streets are rambling and tree- deficient soldiers. Business efficiency, there• lined. Every few hundred feet one comes fore, demands better housing conditions for

Park Road, Port Sunlight. on a school, an institute, a playground employees, apart from the principle of the or some other provision for the education employees' own unquestionable right to the and amusement of the people. There are same." As a result of his investigations he bowling-greens, rifle-ranges, foot-ball en• said that the loss of time through sickness closures, and open-air baths, a technical was over ten per cent out of a possible year's institute, auditorium, band-stand, gymna• work under ordinary housing conditions; sium, hospital, and library. The most that the death rate is over 25 per 1,000 where beautiful building of all is the art gallery, houses are crowded fifty to the acre. If one of the most attractive and well-selected houses are built as in Port Sunlight, at not small galleries I have ever seen. Both the more than twelve to the acre, the death rate architecture and the interior are restful and will be under 14 per 1,000, while the loss of inviting. They suggest very general use time from sickness will be a negligible quan• and a sense of the community itself. tity. This is all aside from the mental and Sir William H. Lever has a high ideal of moral deterioration of the slum-dweller as what his employees are entitled to. He says compared with those of the garden cities. "as a matter of principle all would admit "Surround a home," he says, "with that every diligent employee has a moral slums and you produce moral and physical and indisputable right to live in a decent weeds and stinging nettles. Surround a home, to possess the opportunity to bring home with a garden and you produce the up his children in decent environment, to moral and physical beauty and strength of enjoy the best possible facilities for the de• the flower and the oak." A Port Sunlight corner.

The Lever Brothers' "prosperity-sharing Average height of Bournville boy of 11 years, plans," as they describe their efforts. has had 4 feet 9 inches Average height of Birmingham slum boy of 11 a remarkable effect upon the health and years 4 feet 2 inches well-being of the people. This is quite ob• Average weight of Bournville boy of 11 years, vious to a casual visitor, but careful statis• 4 stone 13 pounds tical investigation by experts is even more Average weight of Birmingham slum boy of 11 convincing. The height of Port Sunlight years 3 stone 11 pounds Greater chest measurement of Bournville boy school children at fourteen years of age was over Birmingham boy 3 inches 62.2 inches, while those of the public schools of Liverpool range from 55.2 inches to 61.7 inches. The weight of the same children was 108 pounds in Port Sun• light and from 71.1 to 94.5 in the public schools. The statistics of the death rate are quite as remarkable. In the average industrial cities of England it ranges from 14 to 19 per 1,000, while in Port Sunlight it ranged during seven years from 5.55 to 12.87 per 1,000. Port Sunlight is not an exception. The com• First houses built in Port Sunlight with tablet recording that their facsimile parison between Bourn• took grand prix at Brussels Exhibition, 1910. ville (another propri• etary garden city) and the near-by city of Average height of 14-year-old children in Birmingham, and of Port Sunlight and the Port Sunlight schools .... 62.2 inches neighboring city of Liverpool, is as follows: Average height of 14-year-old children in Liverpool Council schools . . . 55.2 inches Average weight of 14-year-old children in Death rate in Bournville for 6 years, 7.5 per 1,000 Port Sunlight schools . . . . 10S pounds Death rate in Birmingham for 6 years, Average weight of 14-year-old children in 17.9 per 1,000 Liverpool Council schools . . . 71.1 pounds Infant mortality in Bournville for 6 years, 78.8 per 1,000 Infant mortality in Birmingham for 6 years, Letchworth claims to be England's 170.0 per 1,000 healthiest town. The mortality rate in Ens- The Garden Cities of England land and Wales in 1907 was 15.4 per 1,000. iedin Germany, where the apartment house The infantile mortality rate in five large is the prevalent type of dwelling for all cities ranges from 107.9 TO 157.8 per 1,000. classes. A score of suburban communities

A back garden in Port Sunlight.

The comparison of Letchworth and the have been started under municipal and co• leading English cities in this respect is as operative support. Near Dresden the beau• follows : tiful suburb of Hellerau was opened in INFANTILE ORDINARY 1909 with one hundred and fifty cottages. MORTALITY DEATH RATE PER RATE The suburb grew so rapidly that one CITY 1,000 BIRTHS PER 1,000 hundred and fifty more cottages are in London 107.9 14.0 Birmingham , 134.3 15.4 process of construction. It is a garden Manchester 134.0 17.9 home for artists, musicians, persons of Liverpool ...... 143.6 19.0 moderate means, and artisans. Housing Middlesbrough 157.8 19.1 authorities have welcomed it as a great ad• Letchworth 31.7 5.2 vance on all previous experiments. Here, The garden-city idea is being widely cop- as in England, the community idea of land Open-air swimming bath, Port Sunlight. ownership and house-building has been fol• turn back again to the country the tide of lowed. population from the city. The new city will Just outside of New York city, the Rus• cover a very wide area. It will have a ra• sell Sage Foundation is making a garden-citytlins of twenty, thirtyexperimen , possiblt y atfift Foresy milest Hills. , Long Isl• and. A large area of land was purchased For the area of a city is merely a mailer of which was platted like a rapid transit. The intelligence of the world private estate by expert landscape artists and architects, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and Grosvenor Atterbury. upon which a suburban community has been built with every provi• sion for a self-contained life.

Out of these widely sep• arated experiments a new type of city will come -—a city that will open up possibilities for the town- planner, the landscape artist, the engineer, and the expert in transporta• tion, that, once, intel• ligently co-ordinated, will Altenhof colony of the Krupp Works. Built in 1905, Essen, Germany. 18 The Garden Cities of England 19 is at the command of the nation for the building of dreadnaughts, the per• fection of aeroplanes, the digging of the Panama Canal. Surely the talent of the city, if set to work on the building of houses, the improvement of transportation, the con• trol of the land, and the designing of cities will put an end to the housing problem and bring about a revolution in life for well to do and poor alike in a few years' time. Everywhere politics is be¬ ing co-ordinated with the One-family houses. social problem, with the Alfredshof colony of the Krupp Works, built 1899. Essen, Germany.

that it will not long con• tinue. A one or two room tenement, sunless, almost airless, and at a cost that would pay for a com• fortable home in an at• tractive suburb, is worse than a travesty. It is al• most a crime. Yet this is the condition of mil• lions of well to do and poor alike in our large cities. They pay from twenty to thirty per cent of their in• come for what is at best a makeshift of a home. The garden city is the first suggestion of escape from all this. It shows Some of the more pretentious houses in one of the Krupp colonies at Essen, Germany. that the living problem can be solved by intel• problem of living, as it now is co-ordinated ligent community action. Within another with war, diplomacy, and business. We are generation public opinion will no more tol• rapidly acquiring a city sense in the matter erate the slum and the tenement than it does of education, in the care of children, in health the plagues which were prevalent a generation administration, in provision for recreation ago. Through the garden city a way has been and amusement. And the cramped apart• found to reunite man with the land, from ment, with only an occasional glimpse of the which he has been forcibly divorced for a sun, at from one thousand live hundred to generation by inadequate transit and the pro¬ three thousand dollars a year for the well hibitive urban land values which inadequate to do is such a travesty on the idea of home transportation facilities have created. Hopedale, Massachusetts.

Originally a socialistic community ; now a town of 3,000 inhabitants, developed and controlled for many years along model lines by au industrial corporation.

MODEL TOWNS IN AMERICA

By Grosvenor Atterbury

AT first glance it would appear that first serious attempt in America to formu• any article on model towns in Amer¬ late the subject of city and town planning ica must closely resemble the re• under our native conditions and to meet nowned chapter on snakes in Iceland; for, our own distinctive problems. with but one or two exceptions, there are As in most subjects, the study of town none. planning and model towns begins and Loosely used, the words may be applied ends in a definition. At the beginning to a rapidly increasing number of more stands a theoretic statement, and at the or less attractive and successful housing end a visualized or concrete example that developments, largely of a commercial makes the original conception under• nature, that stand out in marked relief— standable. If in these few pages the conspicuous not so much from their in• writer can roughly bridge this gap he will trinsic merit as by contrast-—among the have accomplished as much as he dare ordinary towns and suburbs of Topsy-like hope; for the subject is one of surprising growth and hopeless aspect. But it is not scope and an importance as yet but little of these that I have been asked to write; understood in this country, and this mat• though there are many that in one phase ter of definition correspondingly difficult. or other are well worth study and com• While I can give you at once a neat label ment. with which to docket the package, it will And to the difficulty arising from the tell you about as little of what is inside as absence of examples is to be added the fact the title of a patent medicine. If you that while in a general way our concep• really care to know what the label means tion of the subject may be based on the we shall have to open the wrapper and recent examples of model towns and gar• roughly analyze its contents. den cities in England and Germany, it must At the outset it will be well to eliminate at best be largely tentative; for as a mat• some prevalent misconceptions, and state ter of fact we are engaged to-day in the clearly certain things which a model town 20 Model Towns in America 21 is not. Let us at once, for example, disen• Now, the conditions that have at last tangle the "Model Town" from the "City brought this about are largely economic. Beautiful" — that fateful euphemism As in the case of the increase in the cost of which, like Helen of Troy, has brought living-—or the high cost of high living, as such tribulation upon those who would it has been aptly put-—the high cost of possess themselves of beauty without due model housing is due not only to higher process of law-—who would deck out our standards, but to the cumulative profits modest villages in Paris finery and ruin of production and distribution common their complexions with architectural cos• to any retail business. The individual can metics. escape the penalties of the situation only Evidently something must be said, by going without or by combining for col• moreover, to lay the ghosts of "Spotless lective action, by means of which the

Roland Park.

An example of collective design as applied to a commercial block.

Town" and "Pullman," not of course in profits of the speculator-—the middleman answer to the facetious paragrapher who in this instance-—can be largely eliminated. calls attention to the fact that a real model Such combined action must be, I think, town must have shade on both sides of the most distinctive feature of a model the street, and no telephone, gas, or elec• town; and therefore its theoretic definition tric companies; but rather to meet such should be based on the essential element honestly felt criticisms as point to inev• of collectivism. Practically stated, this itable failures, such as Brook Farm, Zion means collective purchase, design, develop• City, and Helicon Hall. ment, and control. While any town, whatever its birth and In a broad sense, as has been said, any family history, may aspire to set such a town becomes model by raising its stand• high standard of living that it may be ard sufficiently high. But it is a wellnigh called in a general sense "model," the hopeless fight when the forces of short• word is now taking a new and special sighted selfishness and inertia barricade meaning, following the beginning of themselves in a place whose physical organized attempts to apply scientific, growth has been utterly neglected from aesthetic, and economic principles and the start, or later deformed through our methods to the problem of housing civ• customary short-sighted planning-—cus• ilized humanity. tomary largely because the American habit 22 Model Towns in America of striking debit and credit balances for Little wonder then that one definition the month or year instead of the decade or for "Model Towns" suggested to the generation (as is more often done in the writer was "Failures." older and in many ways wiser countries of Europe) is all against the kind of foresight II which constitutes the first essential of good town and city planning. For-—to re• WHAT, then, is the function of a model turn to our package-—the main wrapper town? What, for example, does the Rus• that metaphorically holds its various con• sell Sage Foundation hope to accomplish tents together is foresight. This is of by its demonstration at Forest Hills Gar• course the vital essence that produces the dens? What is this new architectural

Gary, Indiana.

A purely commercial development of the United States Steel Corporation. concrete thing we call a plan. In the case species calling themselves city and town of a building it is designed to determine a planners? Our good citizens have been state of permanent and happy equilibrium harangued ad nauseam on the "city beau• between the force of gravity and that ap• tiful "-—and too much of their good money palling collection of stone, brick, steel, already spent on monumental boulevards, wood, and plaster—-not to mention the public fountains, and impossible statues. ubiquitous and irresponsible plumbing Why, then, must we now suffer an inva• pipes-—that go to make the simplest mod• sion of "town-planners" preaching "gar• ern house. Once having coaxed, jammed, den cities" and "model towns"? and twisted these obstreperous elements The answer, unfortunately, in the pres• into a happy family group they are pre• ent state of the public knowledge of the sumed to stay put, and the architect and subject involves an apparent digression his plan are happily forgotten-—or ought from our subject. Whether it was six or to be-—for their proper function is ended. ten thousand years ago that the first cave- But in town-planning the case is more dweller drove the workmen out of his un• difficult. General impressions to the con• finished house and took possession of the trary, a town is not a static proposition, kitchen and sleeping-quarters is perhaps but of the nature of a growing organism. immaterial. But in either case the im• Therefore its plan requires other qualities portant fact is to be noted that until than foresight-—above all, a certain flexi• very recently through all the intervening bility of control. centuries astonishingly little progress has And it must also be remembered that been made in the business of housing the we are not certain as yet what is really human species. As a science it has wanted or what we can actually do. scarcely existed; and as an art has been Whitinsville, Massachusetts.

An example of gradual development. Nearly a century ago a cotton settlement; now an industrial town in many respects entitled to L>e called model. confined almost entirely to the individual is probably symptomatic of normal though unit-—the single dwelling-house. It is fair extremely rapid growth. The upward to say, of course, that the conditions progress of society has been contempora• which have created the housing problem neous with the increase of urban popula• in its present acute form are more or less tion. The concomitant evils of conges• modern. They are still in process of for• tion are merely the national growing-pains mation and growth-—with the centraliz• which we, as a somewhat overgrown coun• ing process which is making such startling try, are feeling with particular acuteness. and, from many points of view, regretta• But the very pertinent fact remains, that ble progress. according to the last census nearly forty The causes of this widespread move• per cent of our entire population is already ment from the farm to the city do not concentrated in large towns or cities, as come under the scope of this article. Suf• compared with three per cent at the close fice it to say that our rapid urbanization of the Civil War, and that this urbaniza•

A street in Whitinsville.

An example of considerable architectural harmony and charm 24 Model Towns in America lion is still rapidly increasing. It is ex• and purpose. "The foundation of beauty," tremely doubtful if it can be stopped, no says a gentleman named Philebus, "is a matter how loudly we raise the cry of reasonable order addressed to the imagi• "back to the farm." It is certain that it nation through the senses," from which I has already created conditions and con• gather that he must have given some sequences that must be reckoned with. thought to city planning and the subject Under the best of circumstances such of model towns. Even the country circus rapid city growth would involve danger. to-day has its itinerary and printed pro• Even where the city or town has been gramme. But the proud city of New carefully and scientifically planned so as York scorns a city plan. While the poor• to provide for rapid increase, it is difficult est negro plants his kitchen garden with to avoid unhealthy congestion, not to men• some semblance of order in the sepa•

Roland Park, near Baltimore.

Illustrating the advantages of collective planning from a social and aesthetic stand-point. tion the economic waste of various kinds ration of his corn and cabbage, our great consequent upon improper distribution of centres of population, for the most part, a city's inhabitants with respect to their grow wild, one thing choking and starving different activities. What is to be ex• out the other-—the factory, the home, the pected, then, where all the conflicting office building, and tenement-—in a jostling forces of vigorous growth are allowed to disorderly crowd, righting for air and light. run riot? The marvel is that our towns Yet with proper provision and control are not even worse than they are. Of the centralization of population has great course, between villagehood and citydom advantages. As in the concentration of one expects an awkward age. But that large industries with the accompanying need by no means signify the chaotic dis• aggregation of capital, it means the pos• order, the squalor, and pretentious show sibility of increased economy and effi• of our bombastic "Centres," "Junc• ciency in government. Especially is this tions," and " Cities." true now that the scope of municipal rule Now, I have not made myself clear if is being so greatly extended. In the minds the reader thinks I am here lamenting the of many it has already ceased to denote absence of kiosks, monuments, and tri• merely a means of control. In numerous umphal arches. What we decry in the instances it has already advanced to the American town is the ugliness of discord, middle ground of protective functions— waste, and unhealthfulness. What we ask attempting to guard against disease, vice, is only that which is suitable to its place and destitution; while in certain others it Model Towns in America 25 is being made to assume the frankly pa• tain number of essentially commercial de• ternalistic functions of prevention and velopments, usually of high-grade prop• provision as seen in the social if not social• erty, as exemplified at Garden City, L. I., istic conception of government to be and Roland Park, in the suburbs of Balti• found to-day in a number of German more, have been laid out and developed towns and cities. There you find the along aesthetic and social lines that justify municipal government not only guaran• their being called in a general sense teeing property rights, but attempting to "model." The governmental type, as protect the individual citizen against the might be expected, is only represented on land speculator and assuming to guaran• a negligible scale. Co-operative and so• tee the poor man an economic opportu• cialistic developments, though more nu• nity; not only providing facilities for merous, have been of little greater signifi• education and recreation and overseeing cance. Hopedale, to be sure, apparently conditions of labor, but furnishing both one of the best examples of the model amusement and employment; not only town now existing in this country, was controlling the housing conditions of the founded in 1841 as a co-operative com• masses, but providing municipal dwell• munity. But in the course of a dozen ings. years it shed its socialistic garb and now, It would be strange indeed if here in like its charming neighbor Whitinsville, is America we did not hanker after some of a thriving commercial town on a substan• these tempting and apparently most de• tially proprietary basis. From among all sirable things! It would not be charac• these, however, as well as a score of other teristic of our national temperament to undertakings of a similar kind, the writer be satisfied until we had "gone the limit" has been unable to select any one which and, having out-Heroded Herod, sat down answers completely to the definition of a to reckon up the cost. That the impulse model town as understood abroad to-day. of our people, when they have realized The failures, it must be confessed, have the possibilities of the situation, will be come nearer doing so than the successes. along this line I have no doubt. To pre• But, on the other hand, it is safe to say vent such misguided experiments by that the failures have been caused, not showing that the best and wisest of these by the objects sought but by the mistakes results may be attained without paying in the means and methods employed for the price of paternalism or socialism is, to their attainment. In most cases the at• my mind, one of the most important func• tempt has been to eliminate the evil by- tions of the so-called model town and products of unrestrained competitive de• suburb. velopment by means of paternalism. And Instances of attempts to create model anything of that character, whether it be industrial settlements in this country can philanthropic or proprietary, people in be cited as early as 1836; and the list of this country resent and reject. subsequent undertakings, though com• But this does not mean that they will paratively short, includes what might be not accept eagerly any betterment in liv• termed approximations to each of the va• ing conditions which they can obtain on rious distinct types under which present- a fair commercial basis, through higher day model towns and garden cities may standards and more efficient handling of be classified. By far the greater num• land development and distribution, the ber of such undertakings in America have application of collective or co-operative been "proprietary"-—organized by indus• principles, and the science and art of trial concerns primarily for the accommo• town-planning and good housing. dation of their employees. Such, for ex• And this, I take it, is what the model ample, are Pullman, I11., Vandergrift, Pa., town of to-day must aim to make possi• Gary, Ind., Ludlow, Mass., Corey, Ala., ble. Just how this is to be accomplished and Leclaire, near St. Louis; the last practically is manifestly a question to be named, though a village of only six hun• answered only by actual demonstration. dred and fifty inhabitants, being in its eco• But it is safe to say that the problem is nomic and social aspects perhaps the most to be solved along three lines-—the aes• advanced and interesting of all. A cer- thetic, the social, and the ecomonic—- 26 Model Towns in America and that the practical meaning of our aesthetic value. That such primitive subject will be most readily defined and good manners must be the result to-day understood if it be viewed in turn from of rigid restrictions instead of instinct is these three different points of view. not surprising when one realizes that the majority of people in this country have never-—architecturally speaking-—moved III in polite society, or even realized that there "DE gustibus non est disputandum," is such a thing. and the writer has no intention of discuss• To demonstrate the advantage to the ing fashions in taste or architectural style. individual of a reasonable self-restraint But there are certain phenomena that, in the subordination of his own architect• even considered from an aesthetic point ural impulses to a general aesthetic scheme of view, provoke no discussion-—just as is one of the functions of the model de• there are certain odors that are almost velopment. Its successful accomplish• universally abhorrent to the civilized ment will depend, I feel sure, solely on nostril. The strange thing about it is the education of the sense of beauty, al• that while the public sense of smell is ready nascent in this country. For the pretty generally protected against soap correctness of the principle and the value factories, tanneries, and a score of other of the actual results of its application in malodorous affairs, rightly regarded as collective planning is without question. being unconstitutional hindrances to the Yet I am inclined to think that its public pursuit of happiness, the sense of sight recognition will be largely brought about is not considered as yet except as an in• indirectly through the appeal to our keen strument for such practical purposes as commercial sense, which I believe good the pursuit of the mighty dollar. So town-planning is sure to make. visual stenches are given the freedom of To explain the various ways in which our cities. the actual economy and commercial value Now, collective or co-operative plan• of good taste and design may be taught ning and control can operate chiefly in two would lead to a much too technical dis• ways to better this curiously illogical cussion. Suffice it to say that the list in• situation. Negatively, on the principle of cludes the demonstration of the value of the smoke ordinance, it may preserve a ornamental construction instead of con• reasonably harmless aesthetic atmosphere structive ornament, of the intelligent use by putting some limit upon the architect• of common inexpensive materials whose ural anarchy and lawless bad taste that decorative value, because of their rough• runs riot in even the best governed of our ness, their very cheapness of previous cities to-day; while at the same time giv• association, ordinarily goes unrecognized, ing the most misguided architectural and of the surprising effectiveness of sim• efforts a better chance to show such poor ple, honest, and straightforward structures merit as they may possess. when designed and placed with regard to To show a mob the effectiveness of general harmony of color and mass. And discipline may seem dangerously like giv• with these must inevitably come a crusade ing them arms. But the truth is that against the wasteful shams which, like the with any kind of control anarchy ceases. signs on our streets and road-sides, we have And so bad taste, however brutal it may come to tolerate from force of habit-—the be, at once becomes capable of better tin cornice that rears its imitation stone things if it be ordered. The leavening surface a story-height above the tinder-box element of design and purpose appears. frame beneath, and the pretentious fronts The noise becomes music, however crude. and sordid rears between which even our With the elimination of lawless ec• better educated citizens are content to live. centricity and disregard of architectural But all this teaching, it may be said, decency the good elements in the situa• necessarily involves expert services and tion begin to count. However bad in• expense. The admixture of a dollar's dividually, a series of houses that exhibit worth of brains to every dollar's worth of some mutual acknowledgment of each cheap material must come pretty near other's right of existence has at once some spoiling the demonstration from an eco- Model Towns in America nomic point of view. But co-operative de• necessary by the current system of lot sizes sign and development make possible the and their individual development. The employment of experts in all departments difference between the conditions confront• by distributing the greater part of the first ing the architect where each little house, being placed independently, must present, by reason of the shape of the lot, its narrow side to the street, as indicated in Diagram No. 1, and the situation resulting from the application of group planning to the same sized units on identical land areas shown on Diagram No. 2 is a sufficient illustra• tion of what I mean in thus speaking of the aesthetic advantages of collective design.

Diagram No. 1. But in addition to certain economies in construction cost and the far greater cost of their services over a large area of architectural effectiveness obtained by development. Such services, moreover, thus erecting small dwellings in groups, if really efficient, will actually result in this example at once illustrates another ultimate, if not immediate, savings. It is and more obvious kind of saving, and at precisely because of the poor man's ina• the same time serves to throw some light bility to avail himself as an individual of on the economic aspect of our subject. wise technical advice that his home is so often a far more expensive investment, IV comparatively speaking, than the rich man's. Insurance against wasteful bad FOR, besides demonstrating the fallacy taste and poor construction is even more of certain conventional ideas as to gen• of a luxury than that against fire loss, from eral layout, proper street widths, and the which the poorman is ordinarily the heavi• size and distribution of free spaces for est sufferer. public use, and many other matters which On the other hand, collective planning we may not here stop to consider, town- and control should produce conditions planning makes possible certain specific under which good aesthetic results may economies in the use of the building lots be secured far more easily and inexpen• themselves. And these economies result sively, whether the designing be individual in a distinct gain rather than a sacrifice in or collective. Bad as is the taste displayed living conditions, as compared with even in the average small-lot suburban devel• the best results obtainable under indi• opment, it is fair to say that there is no vidual treatment. problem in architectural design more diffi• To illustrate, let us consider the results cult than that presented by the small and of individual and collective planning as cheap dwelling. The irreducible mini• mum of size and cost demands the maxi• mum of skill and study if it is to be made to succeed from an architectural stand• point. Careful consideration of the prob• lem of the individual house for the skilled laborer, mechanic, and clerk leads to the conclusion that even with the most expert designing the best that can be attained architecturally under the system of de• tached dwellings on narrow lots is but a negative result-—the elimination of the gratuitously bad and the mitigation of applied to an entire block. The preceding what is necessarily so. diagram (No. 1) shows the conventional For the trouble really lies in the funda• arrangement of small houses such as is mentally bad requisites as to their propor• pretty sure to result from the develop• tions, mass, and relative position, made ment of a street by a series of owners 28 Model Towns in America

under the customary restrictions imposed live in a street where even though the on almost all suburban building properties. individual houses must all be reduced to The restrictions on each lot are of course the lowest possible terms of comfort and alike, and it is not unjust to American decency, their homely monotony is, at buyers of small lots to assume that each lot will be used to the limit of its restric• tions. The first purchaser to build places his house as near the street as the restric• tions permit, for fear his neighbors may cut off some of the asphalt view from his par• lor windows. Being the first in the field-— a literal simile often enough-—and decid• ing to put his kitchen on the north side and as near to his neighbor's lot line as possible, every succeeding builder must follow suit. The result-—a familiar sight Diagram No. 4. in countless miles of our suburban streets -—is what is indicated by the diagram-—a least, relieved by a certain amount of rather neat example of " liberty, equality, variety in their arrangement. and fraternity" as "she" is practised— But quite apart from all such advan• an arrangement assuring an absolutely tages, and leaving out of consideration the equal and neighborly sharing of all the aesthetic aspects of the matter, both of disadvantages of individual planning, architecture and landscape design, let us whereby each owner is secure against any see what practical economies lie in this suspicion that his neighbor has gotten the latter arrangement. In the first place it best of him, for the simple reason that must be explained that in determining re• they have all made equally poor use of strictions on real estate of this type, now their lots. It represents pure democracy recognized as essential for commercial if in town-planning. for no other reasons, it is in the very On the other hand, in the diagram (No. nature of the case necessary to assume the 2) is shown what may happen where worst conditions that can be brought a beneficent monarchy, working unde about under them. Otherwise they do identical conditions, has foreordained an not protect, and to protect is of course arrangement in which each building is the function of restrictions. But like any located with some consideration for its other mandatory and inflexible rule which neighbor. It assumes, of course, a certain must apply equally to all men and con• individuality in taste-—that not every ditions it is very costly in an economic owner wishes to live on the sidewalk, that sense. An obvious and pertinent ex• some would like a garden space at the ample is the city building law. In order to protect the general public against the dishonest owner and builder, rules are required that penalize the honest man and result in the waste of millions of dollars annually. Could we assume in every case absolute integrity of workman• ship and material, the cost of many items of construction could be surprisingly re• duced. Though by no means so obvious, the case is similar in the matter of prop• erty restrictions; and the extent of the wastage involved in the ordinary indi• vidualistic development is the measure of front and some at the side, that most the economy secured by good collective people would enjoy looking past instead planning. This may be seen by a com• of into their neighbor's walls and win• parison of the two diagrams, No. 3 and dows, and that many would be glad to No. 4. The former shows the minimum Model Towns in America 29 width of lot which experience has shown required in building construction to in• may be sold with a proper regard for the sure against imperfect work and which is protection of individual purchasers and technically called the "factor of safety." the successful development of a certain In both cases this is a heavy tax on the type of property as a whole. The sale of owner or tenant of the property. While it any narrower lot will under ordinary in• is clearly recognized by all experts in con• dividualistic planning and development re• struction, I doubt if it has ever been recog• sult in detriment to the value of the lots in nized as such—in this country at least-— question, as well as to the neighboring in the case -of real-estate development.

Bird's-eye view of Forest Hills Gardens, Long Island.

An example of collective planning, development, amd control. property. But as will be seen from And here again is a specific instance where Diagram No. 4, if instead of having to the demonstration of this fact in a model insure against the worst possible use of town may have a great educational value. the property by individual owners it were There is, moreover, another develop• possible to assume that the buildings ment of this group-planning principle would all be intelligently planned as one which, although as yet experimental, may group, the average width of the lot might lead to a practical solution of one of the be reduced twenty per cent and the con• greatest difficulties in any attempt to ditions be really better for each individual secure a decent suburban development house. which shall at the same time meet the In other words, collective planning by necessities of the "small buyers"-—who means of mutual adjustment in each constitute perhaps the largest, and in some specific case does away with the costly respects the most desirable, class among blanket restrictions, which cause in real- the seekers for small suburban homes. A estate development of this type a very certain number of these are able to buy, considerable waste in the use of land-— on easy terms, a lot with a house already the counterpart of that material which is built upon it, and can therefore be ac- 30 Model Towns in America commodated by the erection and sale of for all the plots in a given group, formal groups such as already illustrated. But contracts will be entered into between the a far greater number, and those in fact company and the various purchasers, mak• to whom economy is most necessary, can• ing the plan operative as to that group. not afford to undertake the building of a The company will agree to build the whole house until three or four years after the group as soon as payments amounting to purchase of their lots, even assuming the approximately ten per cent of the com• easiest terms which are possible on any bined price of house and plot, together commercial basis. with interest, taxes, and assessments, shall On the other hand, to sell such small have been made on every plot in the group, units as this class can afford to buy-—lots provided all the terms of the contracts of twelve or fifteen have been observed. feet in width, for ex• Under the ordinary ample-—subject to system of payments independent de• this amount will velopment by such have been paid in individual owners, about four years; however careful the but if at any time restrictions, is cer• before that period tain to give results each of the pur• detrimental to the chasers in the group value of the prop¬ shall have paid the ertv as a whole, required ten per quite aside from any cent, and, under cer• aesthetic considera• tain conditions, tions or that of the even though all the additional expense members of the involved in the sep• entire group have arate erection of Diagram No. 5. not qualified, the such small indi• company agrees to vidual houses. Unless some means be build the group forthwith. found, therefore, by which these difficul• While preserving the forty- or fifty-foot ties can be met, the home-seekers of this plot, and its regular restrictions in all class must be relegated to such undesir• cases where lots are sold under ordinary able property as may have already lost conditions, the company hopes by this caste by reason of similar disorderly group-building plan to meet the need of growth, or may be for some other reason those who want smaller plots for future so undesirable as to make its proper de• building in a manner that secures the ad• velopment of no import. vantage of large combined operations, It is necessary again to cite Forest Hills both as to design and construction, with• Gardens for an example of any practical out requiring as large a cash payment as is attempt to solve this problem. Under the necessary to purchase a house in a group al• "Sage Group-building Plan" portions of ready built and without too great sacrifice the property are set apart for division into of individual preference as to house plans. groups of lots of a width of thirteen feet By collective planning and control it each and upward, and for each group of thus hopes to save for the small pur• lots a group of buildings is designed. chaser the twenty per cent which, as we Briefly stated, the plan provides for the have seen, under the guise of its general purchase of individual plots forming parts restrictions, constitutes the "factor of of such a group upon terms of payment safety" necessary for the general protec• similar to those for ordinary vacant lots, tion of its purchasers. and such modifications as are approved by the company will be made in the plans of individual houses of the group to suit the ideas of purchasers. As soon as ac• BUT this is illustrative of only one type ceptable applications have been received of burden which our "model town," like Model Towns in America 31 a willing pack-animal, is expected to carry. cide to have; and in part for private allot• Along with the more or less handily tied- ment gardens attached to those houses on up economic and aesthetic problems, like the surrounding lots whose owners desire the foregoing, are a lot of loosely bound to lease additional garden space at a fair and awkwardly shaped sociological and rental. social experiments which must sooner or There are many people who want to ex• later be added to the pack; the art of the periment with a garden-—more of a garden business lying in so packing them that than is possible on the ordinary house plot those proving too awkward for even a -—but who either are unable to buy the model pack-horse to carry can be slipped necessary area or feel too uncertain of off before the animal goes down with the their gardening success to risk the addi• entire load on its tional investment. back. While the To such as these the field of co-operative plan in contempla• possibilities in this tion offers the op• connection is too portunity of hiring large to permit in garden space outside this article anything their lots and of in• more than the most creasing or decreas• superficial glance, ing this space, or we may consider one finally giving it up, example illustrating just as their experi• at once both the ence may dictate, type of problem and instead of being the kind of precau• definitely committed tion against failure to what they might which ought to be unwisely choose at taken in all such Diagram No. 6. the start. If as demonstrations. large a piece of land In certain of the blocks at Forest Hills as that here reserved could never be used Gardens, provision has been made for in other ways, in case the demand for small private parks in the interior of the garden space grew slack and the people blocks. But such parks, if increased in in the block no longer cared to keep up a size beyond the very limited extent by private park, the company would have which the depth of the abutting lots can to make itself safe against such a con• be shortened, must correspondingly in• tingency by charging an extra price for crease the normal price of the surrounding the lots which carried with them the privi• lots. Such additional cost, moreover, rep• leges of the reserved space. But the area resenting land permanently unavailable enclosed in this case is designed so as to for anything but park purposes, would be permit its conversion into a cross street a questionable investment for the small flanked by building lots of marketable purchaser. To meet this difficulty, one size, as is shown by the diagram (No. 6), section of property at Forest Hills Gardens which makes it commercially possible for has been especially subdivided as shown the company to lease this area to the sur• in the diagram (No. 5) so as to make it rounding lot owners to acquire its use from possible for the company to lease this in• the company at a rental unusually small, terior property at a rental based on the because based on the wholesale price of wholesale price of the land to the abutting this land. They may thus decide for them• owners for co-operative development and selves at the end of every year whether control with the right of purchase. Under the park and gardens have shown them• this plan an exceptionally large area is here selves to be worth their keep or whether reserved in the middle of the block with on the whole they do not pay. If the the expectation that it will be used in part owners of a majority of the lots in the as a private park for all the people in the block as now laid out should vote to give block, with tennis-courts and such other up the lease of the interior land, but only provisions for recreation as they may de• in such case, the company would resume Third Development —

Treatment of entire street, showing collective design. Single, semi-detached, group its occupation thereof, construct a street If for no other reason, therefore, the through it. and sell the remaining land in model town must be considered, organized lots. It would, however, first give the and developed on a business basis; and opportunity to each of the surrounding the value of the experience acquired or lot owners to purchase the piece in the any success achieved will depend first and rear of his own lot before selling it to an last on obtaining results in the face of con• outsider; and at any time during the con• ditions no more favorable than ordinarily tinuance of the lease the surrounding lot met with in other land developments, and owners would have the option of buying by the use of means ordinarily available the interior land as a whole on joint ac• in other instances. In fact the future of count. Thus it is happily arranged so town-planning in America depends on that neither purchaser nor company can whether it can be shown to pay. The so- lose much of anything-—a plan which com• called model town must succeed on a com• bines the "golden rule" and the principle mercial basis. It must even do better in of "heads I win and tails you lose." with this respect than the ordinary commer• what, it is hoped will prove beneficent cial or speculative development. Its edu• results. cational, architectural, and sociological possibilities, therefore, in the last analysis VI depend on its economic success. The equation is fundamentally an economic AND this characteristic is a very impor• one. however aesthetically it may be put tant one; for it means that, if successful upon the slate, and its solution must be others may safely try similar schemes found in terms of dollars and cents. without financial risk. Obviously, no ex• Thus, in spite of being called "garden periment or demonstration should be made cities," the real genesis and the most im• in a "model town" such that could only portant function of the European "model be duplicated with the aid of philanthropy, town"-—usually developed on some kind charity, or paternalism, or in which the of co-operative basis-—has been an eco• collective action might not be equally pos• nomic one, practically a matter of self- sible and safe, whether the capital and defence. Whereas the medieval walled direction be supplied by one proprietor, a town was a refuge for marauding barons, great number of individuals in co-opera• the co-operative town of to-day is prima• tion, or, as is the case in the demonstra• rily a means of protection against our tion by the Russell Sage Foundation at modern land speculators. And the value Forest Hills, a kind of educational oli• of the model town in this respect should garchy whose control will gradually gi\e be even greater here in America, where place to a lot owner's democracy. one of the fundamental difficulties in the Forest Hills Gardens. and block houses disposed with a view to land economy and avoidance of monotony.

solution of the housing problem lies in To distinguish between the results of the uncertain and rapid changes in land greed and neglect on the part of the builder prices and usage, and the speculative ex• and landlord, and the evils that are due to ploitation of an increment very much general causes for which they are in nowise "unearned" by those who ordinarily responsible-—systems of land distribution, profit most by it. sale, tenure, and taxation-—is a most dif• While stimulated by a number of ficult task. But it is the first step toward causes, these conditions are made possi• any permanent solution of the hydra- ble largely by reason of the lack of town- headed questions generally spoken of as planning-—that collective design and con• the " housing problem. " And to any one trol of which we have been speaking. who has first-hand knowledge of the living Nor is it by any means confined to large conditions under which the country breeds cities and their suburbs. Economically, a great part of its workers and citizens, the problem exists long before the town this "housing problem" must appear no grows to be a city. The trouble becomes inconsiderable factor in what is commonly tangible with the building of the first spoken of as the "social unrest" through• multiple dwellings and tenement houses. out the country. There is no more dangerous fallacy than But whether or not it be a directly con• the comfortable belief that sinister liv• tributing cause of strikes and other labor ing conditions exist only in large cities. disturbances, this question of proper The effect of bad housing on the poorer homes for laboring men should be rec• classes, and indirectly on the public in ognized as one of those grave problems general, is now being constantly demon• that are coming to the surface in all parts strated; so that it is unnecessary further of the United States as the flood of our sur• to emphasize it here. But it is doubtful plus material wealth recedes; and which, if even the intelligent and interested por• like rocks in a harbor, are really most dan• tion of the public realizes that many of gerous when still concealed, just before the worst housing conditions are directly the ebbing tide bares them to plain view. due to bad city planning-—improper street To claim that garden suburbs and model layout and lot units-—and that unhygienic towns will cure all such ills would be carry• dwellings are oftentimes but symptomatic ing our simile of the patent-medicine label of unhealthy economic conditions. That a little too far. There is some danger that what appears a problem in house and tene• the power for good manifestly inherent in ment design is at bottom really a question this world-wide awakening to the social of street plan, lotting, restrictions, and city meaning and importance of living con• ordinances — in other words, town-plan• ditions may be seriously hampered by a ning. too thoughtless acceptance of its first 33 34 Model Towns in America manifestations in the shape of so-called tical, may very properly stand for ideals "model" towns and demonstrations of va• higher than those of its inhabitants; for it rious kinds — proprietary, governmental, is nothing more or less than a department co-operative, or socialistic — as a cure-all of that most powerful of all educational for the body politic. institutions, "the school of environment." Very evidently the success of all such It is safe to say that to the majority of experiments presupposes a supply of more the readers of this magazine closely packed or less ideal citizens, which is likely Manhattan represents a magnetic pole of enough to prove difficult to obtain. Yet social attraction — or distraction — of pro• it is more than probable that this is due to fessional or business opportunity, toward the fact that while we have been build• which the needle of their compass is more ing model stock and poultry farms for a or less strongly drawn — a place of monu•

Children's Gardens, Dayton, Ohio. An example of industrial social welfare work, in which the National Cash Register Co. has been especially prominent. decade or two in which to breed blooded mental hotels and private palaces, great cows and prize hens, we are only now be• enterprises, splendid amusements. The ginning the attempt to provide similarly suburb, on the other hand, stands for the well for the breeding of "blooded" citi• enforced economy of young married life-— zens. Naturally no town can long remain the martyrdom of commutation — largely "model" without "model" inhabitants. " for the sake of the children." But to the It will surely not rise above the level of masses that congest our tenements, streets, its citizenship. That basic principle of and subways, the city can rarely appear in hydraulics is an apt enough simile. But such a light; far oftener a labyrinth of it is equally evident that water will not brick, stone, and steel — a place of uncer• rise even to its own level unless the walls tain work and little pay, of struggle for of the containing vessel are carried up to life, or even for existence — while the sub• that height. So in spile of the fact that urbs and smaller towns, if they but know garden cities and suburbs must earn their it, may well be a haven of refuge. For it living in just the same work-a-day fash• has been truly said that the one vital ion as the people who live in them, one point in which the suburb differs from the should not forget that the town, even city slums is in its possession of happiness. though it must be so essentially prac• How far the dweller in the model town or A recently developed group in Garden City, Long Island.

A pioneer among comprehensively planned towns and suburbs in America. suburb partakes of this priceless posses• So the model town, whether it serves sion must largely depend upon himself; to retard still further centralization in but the study of such problems, both here vast cities or to draw some portion of and abroad, leads, I think, to the convic• city dwellers back into purer environ• tion that for the great masses their oppor• ment, as have the garden suburbs of Lon• tunity lies that way. don, has for its supreme function the And it is from this point of view that making of healthier, happier, and better the study of suburban development in all citizens. its phases — as factory centre, model town, As for its practical definition, if the or garden city, commercial, philanthropic, reader has not — by reason of this cata• educational — makes its strongest appeal. logue of virtues — already written it down It has to do with the greatest conserva• a "municipal prig," let him conceive it a tion problem of to-day — that of our race place whose citizens are models of happi• -—and one that has been neglected with a ness. Or let him define it, as Maeterlinck recklessness that can only be described as might, "A model town is a collection of American. homes where bluebirds dwell."

Pullman, Illinois.

The most ambitious of earlier " model " developments. Formerly under paternal control, lately absorbed by the city of Chicago. Home of Henry E. Huntington, Pasadena,

THE NEW SUBURB OF THE PACIFIC COAST

By Elmer Grey

HERE are on the Pacific Coast many as glowing examples of what nature when examples of suburbs that have been combined with intelligent art can accom• T laid out with rare forethought. The plish. In the suburb people desire above best of these are residence districts of such all else beauty of surroundings, and they surpassing beauty as to make it difficult to are willing frequently to put up with con• convey to the unfamiliar mind an idea of siderable inconvenience in order to ob• their charm. The difficulty lies in that tain it. They will leave the apartment- words and photographs do not give an house or small city lot and travel an hour adequate impression. Photographs show or more, morning and evening, in order to partial views of what should be seen in live in the suburb. They will climb hills entirety. Words are associated too often when they get there in order to build their with the fiction of the printed page. homes where is the finest view. They do The East has been an experimental sta• require comfort, but they must have tion for the West in the matter of suburb beauty also if at all possible. planning; and this is fortunate, for it The far West has realized this fact, and would have been a pity to mar the beauty applied it with courage. In Oak Knoll, of some of the most beautiful scenery in Pasadena, an oak tree is valued at a the world by the introduction of roads and thousand dollars, some at more than that. houses in a hap-hazard manner. Some of In this most beautiful residence district the natural advantages of the West have nature was lavish with her gifts, and man been desecrated, but enough have been took advantage of it. The country is appreciated and so well treated as to shine rolling and dotted with live oaks. Toward

36 The New Suburb of the Pacific Coast 37 the north is a mag• nificent background of mountains, to• ward the south a panorama of the en• tire San Gabriel Val• ley. With this good start roads were planned along the natural contours, wound through the bottoms of "ravines and canyons, and thoroughly im• proved. In cases where trees or groups of trees came in the path of roads, the roads were deflected; and A winding street in Oak Knoll, Pasadena. in some instances immensely valuable pieces of property the valley, green from recent rains, stand were given over as parks to save a out with remarkable distinctness, the group of oaks or enhance the beauty of mountains a few miles away are white with the whole. Along some of the winding snow. There is no more delightful place drives tall eucalypti stand as sentries. in the world to live. Adorning many of the hills are full-grown Backed up against the mountains, north orange orchards. Scattered in among of Pasadena, lies Altadena. Recently them are beautiful villas, some of light there has been opened up there the Foot• hue reminiscent of Spain and Italy, others hill Boulevard. Until a short while ago darker in tone and of a local style unique most of this drive consisted of but sage• in its suitability to California sunshine brush, cacti, and boulders. Intelligent and flowers. As I write the yellow fruit planning and ready money worked a hangs upon the trees, the distant hills of transformation. It is now the favorite automobile drive for Pasadena and Los Angeles motor• ists. The topog• raphy of the coun• try is that of a deep wooded canyon running parallel with the base of the mountains. The drive for a consider• able distance has been planned to skirt the edge of the canyon, so that in riding along one looks across a chasm at the almost sheer and rocky face of the mountains. Always in another A residence, Oak Knoll, Pasadena.

A suggestion of the architecture of Japan has been used will, good effect. direction is the wide Residence of G. W. Wattles, Hollywood, California.

Originally the property was bare save a covering of sage-brush. panorama of San Gabriel Valley. One of Across a great arroyo, on another side the finest features of this boulevard might of Pasadena, is San Rafael Heights with have been irremediably spoiled if building its quota of beautiful homes. It has all lots and houses had been interposed be• the natural advantages possessed by Oak tween the canyon and the drive. Knoll minus the fine roads and walks. Besides an un• obstructed view of the mountains, it commands a pano• ramic view up and down the Arroyo Seco, which prom• ises to be preserved in its natural aspect as a public park. All around Pasa• dena and Los An• geles much of the architecture is beautiful by reason of its having a char• acter of its own. The local architects have frequently considered the oaks

Bungalow in Hollywood. in designing their Terraced garden, residence of G. W. Wattles, Hollywood, California.

Now it is an ensemble of luxuriant semi-tropical foliage and flowers.

buildings; and in many instances have lends an additional charm. A suggestion built a porch, pergola, or balustrade around of the architecture of Japan has also been a spreading tree, forming a patio or terrace widely used with good effect, and the two of unusual beauty. A number have also adaptations go far toward giving Southern succeeded in instilling into their work California a distinctive architectural style. a suggestion of the architecture of the Mediterranean countries; and whether because of the similar climate, or of the Spanish influence of the mis• sions and near-by Mexico, at any rate, the result harmo• nizes exceedingly well with the Cali• fornia landscape. The buildings are not Spanish in style, nor are they Italian; they are distinctly Californian, but the foreign influence pervades them and "Bungalow Land" Hollywood. 40 The New Suburb of the Pacific Coast

From Los Angeles to the ocean, a dis• tance of about twenty miles, a magnificent boulevard skirts the foot-hills, connecting several suburbs on the way. The first of these is Hollywood, a district recently an• nexed to Los Angeles. It has beauti• fully shaded streets, but is conspicuous in a more unusual way for the manner in which the sides of its hills and canyons have been utilized for building purposes. Out of two of these hills and an interven• ing canyon, which at one time may have seemed to many like almost worthless property, was made one of the show places of California. It consists of an extensive terraced garden backing upward into the canyon. The lower portions around the house are surrounded by walls and are connected to the upper levels by many flights of balustraded steps. Originally the property was bare save a covering of sage-brush; now it is an ensemble of luxuriant semi-tropical foliage and flowers, half-hidden architectural features, mir• rored water effects and beautiful foot-hill background. In another of Hollywood's many can• yons is "Bungalow Land,"wher e those of more modest means build their eyries. In many instances the ground floor of one part of a Hollywood house opens upon the second floor level of another portion built lower down. Beverly Hills, situated a few miles near• er the ocean and midway between Los Angeles and the sea, is also built among the foot-hills and extends down from them over a wide stretch of sloping country. Nowhere in Southern California has there been a more consistent attempt to plan a suburb in the right way from the start. The business portion was established where is the least view, at the lower end of the slope. The residence section extends from there northward, up, on and into the foot-hills. The main trolley lines from the city run through the business portion and also along the base of the hills. Ad• joining the principal station a consider• able piece of property was set aside as a park, planted with trees and shrubbery, and an extensive water-garden put in at the time the tract was laid out. The streets were planned in great sweeping curves having in mind the main lines of travel, and shade-trees were set out. Ow- The New Suburb of the Pacific Coast 41 ing to the location of the town between another, thus forming a most beautiful the city and the sea, its fine situation along bay. Interposed between the mountains the hills, and its proximity to the golf links and the lower country is a wooded canyon of the Los Angeles Country Club, it was a mile wide and two hundred feet deep. foreseen that it would be a convenient and The Palisades of Santa Monica overlook delightful resort for tourists. So upon a this canyon, look out upon the bay, and sightly knoll a site was established for a also upon a beautiful mesa opposite and future hotel with another park in front of several ranges of mountains. A road

Bungalow court in Pasadena.

it to preserve its valley view. This was running from them follows up the coast all several years ago. To-day a large and, skirting the shore for miles, consti• tourist hostelry occupies the hotel site, tutes a magnificent scenic automobile the park opposite has been still further im• drive. proved, the street trees have attained size, and the entire place is building up just as In taking the train north from Los was first contemplated. How much bet• Angeles, and after leaving San Francisco, ter than to have had it grow hap-hazard. the character of the country begins to Santa Monica, the ocean terminus of the change. At Portland the change is very boulevard from Los Angeles, has a situa• marked. At Seattle it is a transformation. tion similar to that of some of the beauti• Instead of the comparatively bare hills ful seaport towns of Southern Italy. Here and the spreading oaks of the south, vast all the mountain ranges I have mentioned forests of tall firs growing thickly to• assemble to make their final bow. They gether are the dominant note. Instead do this with the utmost grace. Their of the dry canyons and arroyos of South• rugged shores are usually fringed with surf ern California, many rivers and inland and jut out as promontories one beyond lakes appear. And these two features, 42 The New Suburb of the Pacific Coast

the great forests of firs and other ever• a great park system, the various units of greens and the plenitude of rivers and which are connected by boulevards that lakes, are the distinguishing character• wind along the shores of beautiful Lake istics of the north-western landscape. Washington and Puget Sound. On the This distinction should be held in mind, opposite shores of both of these bodies of because it marks a great difference be• water are snow-covered peaks; the tween the two sections of country as re• Olympics on the west, the Cascades on the gards the treatment of their suburbs. It east. The parks are remnants of ancient changes the material best adapted to forests (thus has Seattle conserved her landscaping and should change the style natural resources) and, unlike the south• of architecture. The north-west has not ern country, the ground between the trees yet found itself as regards a character• is covered thickly with an undergrowth of istic style of architecture, but this is more trailing plants, low-growing shrubs, and beautiful ferns. The effect of all these features in combination must be seen to be appre• ciated; and when you do see it, if you have a particle of love for the beauti• ful within you, you will come away with a sense of sorrow, not only because you have to leave so lovely a place, but also because you cannot convey an impression of its real character to your friends who have not seen it. The Bungalow at Cudahy Station, near Los Angeles. camera would need than made up by the way much of its landscaping has been done. I am writing now after having just seen Seattle, and my pen falters in con• sequence. For I know not how to ex• press all the wonder• ful beauty seen in one day's automo¬ biling over the wind• ing drives and ram• bling afoot through the dark-green forest parks of Se• attle's suburbs. They have distrib• uted through them BUNGALOW Land, Hollywood Bungalow Land, Hollywood.

In many instances the ground flu\oor of one part of a Hollywood house opens upon the second floor level.

to take one continuous panorama of your Twenty-three years ago Spokane had drive and walk to show but a fraction of seven thousand inhabitants. To-day it it; words tell much less. I came away has one hundred and thirty-two thousand. with a vision which I cannot transmit, of It also has a few men who have watched it majestic firs towering in the air, of a grow, who realize that it will continue to maze of wonderful undergrowth beneath, grow, and who have secured for its suburbs of blue waters glistening between the trees a system of distributed parks and play• and of snow-covered mountains beyond. grounds which, considering lesser possi• It is to the very great credit of the peo• bilities, is quite as fine as that of Seattle. ple of Seattle that they appreciated the Here as there expert advice was employed beauty of their city's unusual situation, for the planning. The park lands ob• and the remaining portions of forest in tained have not all been improved, but their midst and, before the latter had been were secured by the city for park pur• cut down, employed an able firm of land• poses while it was still possible to secure scape architects to make the best disposi• them at a reasonable figure, and before tion of them. It has been done in such they had been denuded of trees or built ways as to provide every portion of the upon. Many of them were given to the future residence section of the city as it city by realty firms or others who realized expands with a forest park, a playground, that their use as parks would enhance the and a drive along the water. The value value of adjoining property. The con• of such foresight is never immediately necting parkways are likewise not all yet apparent to all, and it is the more amaz• developed, but the roads have been se• ing that Seattle should have done what cured for the purpose and are so laid out it has done in so splendid a way. as to insure a drive thirty-seven miles East of Seattle, some four hundred long, with a commanding view on one side and forty miles, is the inland city of Spo• and residential property on the other. kane with a rushing river fed by moun• Much interesting development has been tain streams coursing through its midst. done in the Spokane suburbs. In Rock- 43 44 THE New Suburb of the Pacific Coast

trict has been denuded of trees in a shameful manner, and in the midst of it there are several magnificent gulches over• grown with firs, balsam, and madrona, one or two of which have been secured for parks, while the others overlooking Puget Sound and commanding wonderful views have been left to the disposition of fate. But what the city lacks in all-cast feat• ures, it makes up for in star attractions. Its Point Defiance Park is a primeval forest. The firs in it grow two hundred feet high. They rise like a myriad of gigantic gray columns, their tops and shafts adorned with great masses of grace• ful tuft-like foliage. As I rode through I could think only of "cathedral aisles." The undergrowth is an impenetrable jungle of Oregon grape, alder, madrona, huckleberries, and the like. The ground at the sides of the road is carpeted solid with moss. Photograph by Seattle Publicity Bureau. The "prairie" lying north-west of the Mt Baker Boulevard, on shore of Lake Washington. city is a tract of as yet undeveloped land, perhaps ten or fifteen miles square, as re• wood, streets have been laid out on the markable as it is beautiful. The peculiar curvilinear plan following the natural constituency of the ground in it is such contours, the trolley tracks have been that, although unusually rich under culti• placed in strips of parking, sometimes in the centre, some• times at the side of the street, and the ties have been lowered and grass grown between the rails. A number of line old pines grow• ing in the street have been preserved. Some of the resi• dence sites embrace valley, river, and mountain views that are unsur• passed, and a num• ber of residences have been built of which any city Oympics front Golden Gardens, Seattle. might well be proud. Tacoma is worth visiting in connection vation for miles upon miles, the automo• with the suburb beautiful; but what it bile glides over smooth hard roads that has in this line is mostly what nature has arc virgin soil, while on either side, where given it, while what it has not is due either the surface has not been disturbed, it is to what man has done, or to what he has like a well-kept lawn. Dotted all over left undone. Much of the residence dis• this sward are groups and groves of mag- A residence, Richmond Highlands, Seattle. nificent firs, growing in some places as Portland has made such rapid progress thickly together as in a forest, elsewhere along commercial lines that until recently opening out to expose long vistas of beau• little attention was paid to the manner of tiful country. It is a most wonderful its growth. This is very apparent to the piece of natural landscaping. stranger. It has now, however, a compre• The American Lake district is a suburb hensive city plan prepared by an expert, laid out in three and four acre lots and and includes an extensive park and boule• larger, and encompassing American, Grav• vard system for the suburbs. Much devel• elly, and Steilacoom Lakes. It is much opment following the lines of this plan has like the "prairie" country, but has been already been accomplished, and, judging developed and built upon considerably. from the spirit of some of Portland's citi• It contains one of the best designed, most zens, much more will be done in the near pretentious, and altogether satisfactory future. That which is noteworthy about examples of suburban house architecture the outlying residence section is, however, in this country — the residence of Mr. the manner in which streets have been Chester Thorne. This is the more note• zigzagged and wound up the sides of hills worthy because most of the architecture of great height, following the natural con• of the north-west is a little of everything. tours, and the steep sides utilized for All styles seem to have been tried out to building purposes. It is like climbing a see how they would go. There should be mountain by easy grades with houses some note throughout in harmony with built along the sides all the way up. The that part of the country. When at Seattle hills attain a height of something like four and Spokane, I wondered whether it hundred and fifty feet above the business might not finally appear in the English in• portion of the city and command a mag• fluence of near-by Canada. Several good nificent view of it, of the Willamette River pieces of work in those cities suggested it. and of the country beyond, including three Upon seeing Mr. Thome's residence, this snow-capped mountain peaks. The hill• idea was confirmed. His house is in the side drives which run through several Tudor style and seems welded to the parks of great beauty are, of course, won• landscape. derful on account of the views.

45 46 The New Suburb of the Pacific Coast

hills runs north and south parallel with the shore of the Pa• cific. These hills become higher and more wooded as they run farther south. Fifteen or twenty miles from the city they are quite high and in the valley east of them, protected from the winds and fogs of the ocean, are the suburbs of Burlingame, San Mateo, Menlo Park, and others. The three named are A Spokane residence. noteworthy as con• The suburbs around San Francisco are taining the homes of many of San Fran• difficult to include in an article of this cisco's people of wealth. From the road length, not only because there are so many one sees only high hedges and fences sur• of them, but also rounding large because in many estates. Inside, cases their essen• many of the tial character places are very and difference beautiful. In from other places one at San Ma• lie in qualities teo is a formal which must be garden designed seen and lived by Le Notre, with in order to which has on a be understood. smaller scale Many of them are much of the char• quite old as com• acter of the main pared with the garden of Ver• places that have sailles. In anoth• been described, er place is a most and they have a beautiful Japan• certain charm in ese garden built consequence adjacent to some which only age bay-trees of enor• can give. They mous size and might be divided great age. The according to loca• house in this tion into three place looks like classes: Those on a veritable old the peninsula, English manor Automobile road winding through the big timber in Point overgrown with those on the north Defiance Park, Tacoma. side of the bay vines and ripened around the foot of Mount Tamalpais, and with age. Many more places of a like those west of the bay facing the Golden nature would doubtless be found if one Gate. Mention of some must necessarily had the time and the opportunity to enter be omitted. On the peninsula a range of and inspect them. The New Suburb of the Pacific Coast 47

On the north side of the bay, facing an inlet about a mile wide and protected from the ocean's winds by the hills at the foot of Mount Tamalpais, is Sau- salito. "Sausalito the Beautiful" is here an appropriate term. For again one's enthusiasm wells up and there is a lack of words to express all the

Garden in San Mateo, in the Santa Clara Valley, California.

of the streets are zig• zagged up the sides of steep hills, and there are three other streets which run parallel with the shore in tiers, one above the other. From the two upper levels one looks completely over the tops of the houses built on the one below. In going from the busi• ness portion of the town along the water front to

Japanese garden in San Mateo.

charm. It over• looks San Francisco Bay, the suburb of Belvidere across the inlet, and Angel Island, a govern• ment possession. It has the advan• tage of the other suburbs around San Francisco in having a sheltered harbor for yachts, and is also the official ren• dezvous for the United States rev•

enue cutters. Most Constructed by the town of Ross, Martin County, California, Chester Thorne residence, American Lake, Tacoma.

The house is in the Tudor style and seems welded to the landscape. the residence section above, one passes many more homes of the well-to-do and many stone fences beautifully built in a have the same indefinable charm that natural manner by a local "Arbor So• only age and much attention can give. ciety," which has also planted flowers and The trees are particularly high and beau• ferns along the way to be enjoyed or tiful. Many of the houses have wonder• plucked by the passer-by. This means ful hill-top sites, and these have often been more in Sausalito than it would elsewhere, taken advantage of in producing unusually because the flowers there are exception• beautiful landscape effects in the way of ally luxuriant and profuse in their bloom. terraces, flights of winding steps, and the In one spot commanding a particularly like. One of the features of Ross consists fine view, a beautiful granite seat has been of a number of unusually well-designed erected by the Bohemian Club of San concrete bridges adorned with beautiful Francisco, in memory of the poet, Daniel electric light standards. The public and O'Connell, who lived there. The homes semi-public buildings are also unusually of Sausalito and the paths leading to them good looking. Here, as at Sausalito, the are charming. In looking for one, we were flowers, trees, and shrubs grow with re• told to climb a certain road, then a flight markable luxuriance. of steps, and then " follow the trail." We On the east side of the bay are Oakland, did so, and after wending our way through Piedmont, and Berkeley, cities in them• a mass of low growing oaks, finally found selves. A large percentage of Berkeley the house embowered among the trees residents, however, carry on their busi• and called "Peter Pan's Cottage," be• ness in San Francisco. The most attrac• cause the livable part of it, looking over a tive residence section of Berkeley extends great stretch of oaks, seemed to be built along a wide stretch of territory lying almost among their tops. among the hills overlooking San Fran• Farther north in a valley, and among cisco Bay. The district is newer than the the hills surrounding Mount Tamalpais, places on the peninsula and around Tamal• are the suburbs of Ross, San Anselmo, pais, and, although continuous in devel• and others. The two named contain opment, is so extensive as to be known 48 Garden at the Chester Thorite residence. locally by different names. Claremont, the middle of the street and the latter de• North Berkeley, Northbrae, and Thou• flected around them. In the same place, sand Oaks are some of the most attractive walls and steps have been built out of sections. A peculiar characteristic of the local stone, and one of the unique and entire district lies in the fact that, al• beautiful features is the foot trails built though the building restrictions are quite in this way and connecting higher with low, the class of houses, both as to cost lower levels where the grade was too and beauty of design, is much higher. steep for a street to follow. In Northbrae, Whether the influence of the University of in order to preserve the beauty of a spot California is responsible for this or not is where several streets come together, the hard to say, but it gives Berkeley the dis• trolley tracks have been run beneath it tinction of being one place near San Fran• through a tunnel. The place, above which cisco, where those of modest means may otherwise would have been less sightly, live in an accessible spot, amidst beauti• has been turned into a point of beauty or• ful surroundings, and in the best of archi• namented with a well-designed fountain tectural company. In Northbrae and and surrounded by balustrades. Thousand Oaks, the newer sections, are found some of the most interesting feat• Santa Barbara is famed afar. Its repu• ures. Both are places of great natural tation rests largely upon the beauty of the beauty, occasioned not only by their posi• country around about it. The most note• tion among the hills overlooking the bay, worthy portion of this outlying district is but by an unusual combination of oaks Montecito, a large area of hills and vales and eucalypti interspersed with great dotted with oaks, backed by the moun• masses of glacial deposit rock jutting out tains, and commanding a magnificent of the ground. Here, as at Oak Knoll, view of the ocean. It is divided into Pasadena, trees have been preserved twenty or thirty acre estates owned by whenever possible and their beauty em• wealthy people, who occupy their homes phasized. Also in Thousand Oaks huge a few months in the year, and can afford rocks have in some instances been left in to travel or live elsewhere the rest of the 49 50 The New Suburb of the Pacific Coast

time. Many of these houses, and the scheme of landscape gardening around them, are so palatial in scale that another article would be re• quired to adequately describe them. As with Santa Barbara, so with San Diego, the country around about is largely what has given it a wide reputation. Charles Dudley Warner once de• clared that there are three incomparable views in the world: one in Salzburg, one the Bay of Naples, the third Point Loma, California. As I stood at the latter place recently, and with some ex• perience in travel, I could well believe this to be true. San Diego lies in the middle of a semicircular bay. per• haps twenty miles wide. To• ward the south-east are four ranges of mountains, reced• ing one above the other. In the middle of the bay is Co¬ ronado Beach, virtually an island, since it is connected to the mainland only by a narrow spit of land. On it, beside the city of Coronado, is a training school for avi• ators, and almost any time hydroplanes and aeroplanes may be seen skimming the surface of the water or cir• cling overhead. North of Coronado is the channel en• trance to San Diego harbor, through which United States war vessels and other sea• going craft are continually coming and going. North of this and overlooking the panorama of the city of San Diego, the bay. Coronado, and the four ranges of moun• tains is Point Loma, extend• ing as a high peninsula several miles into the sea. The extreme end of it. com• prising thirteen hundred acres, is a government reser- The New Suburb of the Pacific Coast 51 vation open to the public as a park. Of the making. Many districts which are now remaining portion, twelve hundred acres new and somewhat bare will, within a few is now being laid out in roads following years, undergo an entire change of aspect. the natural contours, subdivided into Especially is this true in California where large lots and provided with utilities. The irrigation applied to trees, flowers, and inspiring thing about it is not only the remarkable sit• uation of Point Loma, but the fact that both it and other suburbs of San Diego are in the hands of men who, ap• parently, are alive to the transformation the city will probably undergo through the opening of the Panama Canal and a new cross-coun• try railway now under con• struction, and are making wise preparations to antici• pate this growth. Below Point Loma are small areas of tide-land flats which it is possible to re• claim by the construction of a sea-wall similar to that of Rio de Janeiro. This is seriously talked of, and if it is done and a projected bou• levard built along the edge of the bay connecting the city with the government park, San Diego will have one of the finest scenic drives in the world. A public park of fourteen Bordering Indian Rock Park, Northbrae, Berkeley. hundred acres lying above and adjacent to the business centre of San shrubbery in a short time works wonders. Diego is equally interesting. It com• All who are interested in this transforma• mands magnificent views of the bay, has a tion of a rapidly growing and a very beautiful canyon running through it, and beautiful country will watch the develop• is now being further beautified by per• ment of Pacific Coast cities during the manent and extensive architectural feat• next few years with interest. Commer• ures erected for first use in connection with cial activity in all is proceeding hand in the coming exposition. hand with the beautification of the sub• It should not be forgotten that much urbs; and therein lies incalculable future of the far West is now in the process of benefits. " Iwan t you to promise me not — not to shoot anybody. " Page 6l. THE HEART OF THE HILLS

BY JOHN FOX, JR.

Illustrations by F. C. Yohn.

XI and Gray and Marjorie welcoming the guests; the men, sturdy country youths THE last sunset had been good types of the beef-eating young Eng• clear and Jack Frost had lish squire — sun-burned fellows with big got busy. All day the frames, open faces, fearless eyes, and a clouds had hung low and manner that was easy, cordial, kindly kept the air chill so that the independent; the girls midway between night was good for that the types of brunette and blonde, with a archimp of Satan who has got himself leaning toward the latter type, with hail enshrined in the hearts of little children. that had caught the light of the sun By dawn the little magician had spun a radiant with freshness and good health robe of pure white and drawn it close to and strength; round of figure, clear of the breast of the earth. The first light eye and skin, spirited, soft of voice, and turned it silver and showed it decked with slow of speech. Soon a cavalcade moved flowers and jewels, that the old mother through a side-gate of the yard, through might mistake it, perhaps, for a wedding- a blue-grass woodland, greening with a gown instead of a winding sheet; but the second spring, and into a sweep of stubble sun, knowing better, lifted, let loose his and ragweed; and far up the road on top tiny warriors, and from pure love of beauty of a little hill a boy on an old mare stopped smote it with one stroke gold, and the bat• and watched a strange sight in a strange tle ended with the blades of grass and the land — a hunt without dog, stick, or gun. leaves in their scarlet finery sparkling with A high ringing voice reached his ears the joy of another day's deliverance and clearly, even that far away: the fields grown gray and aged in a single "Form a line!" night. Before the fight was quite over And the wondering lad saw man and that morning, saddle-horses were step• woman aligning themselves like cavalry ping from big white barns and being led fifteen feet apart and moving across the to old-fashioned stiles; buggies, phaetons, field — the men in leggings or high boots, and rockaways were emerging from turn• riding with the heel low and the toes pike gates; and the rabbit-hunters moved, turned according to temperament; the shouting, laughing, running races, singing, girls with a cap, a Derby, or a beaver with past fields sober with autumn, woods dingy a white veil, and the lad's eye caught one with oaks and streaked with the fire of su• of them quickly, for a red tam-o'-shanter mac and maple. On each side of the road had slipped from her shining hair and a new hemp lay in shining swaths, while broad white girth ran around both her bales of last year's crop were on the way saddle and her horse. There was one man to market along the road. The farmers on a sorrel mule and he was the host at the were turning over the soil for the autumn big house, for Colonel Pendleton had sur• sowing of wheat, corn-shucking was over, rendered every horse he had to a guest. and ragged darkies were straggling from Suddenly there came a yell — the rebel the fields back to town. From every point yell — and a horse leaped forward. Other the hunters came, turning in where a big horses leaped too, and everybody yelled square brick house with a Grecian portico in answer and the cavalcade swept for• stood far back in a wooded yard, with a ward. There was a massing of horses, fish-pond on one side and a great smooth the white girth dashing in the midst of the lawn on the other. On the steps between mêlée, a great crash and much turning, the columns stood Colonel Pendleton twisting, and sawing of bits, and then all 53 54 The Heart of the Hills dashed the other way, the white girth in his cousin Mavis Hawn, bending over the lead, and the boy's lips fell apart in her saddle and yelling like mad. This wonder. A black thoroughbred was mak• way and that poor Mollie swerved, but ing a wide sweep, an iron-gray was cutting every way her big startled eyes turned, in behind, and all were sweeping toward that way she saw a huge beast and a yell• him. Far ahead of them he saw a fright• ing demon bearing down on her. Again ened rabbit streaking through the weeds, the horses crashed, the pony in the very and as it passed him the lad gave a yell, midst. Gray threw himself from his sad• dug his heels into the old mare, and him• dle and was after her on foot. Two self swept down the pike, drawing his re• others swung from their saddles, Mollie volver and firing as he rode. Five times made several helpless hops, and the three the pistol spoke to the wondering hunters scrambled for her. The riders in front in pursuit and at the fifth the rabbit tum• cried for those behind to hold their horses bled heels over head and a little later the back, but they crowded on and Jason rose hunters pulled their horses in around a upright on the fence to see who should be boy holding a rabbit high in one hand, a trampled down. Poor Mollie was quite pistol in the other, and his eager face hemmed in now, there was no way of es• flushed with pride in his marksmanship cape, and instinctively she shrank fright• and the comradeship of the hunt. But ened to the earth. That was the crucial the flush died into quick paleness so hos• instant, and down went Gray on top of tile were the faces, so hostile were the her as though she were a foot-ball, and the voices that assailed him, and he dropped quarry was his. Jason saw him give her the rabbit quickly and began shoving one blow behind her long ears and then, fresh cartridges into the chambers of his holding a little puff of down aloft, look gun. about him, past Marjorie to Mavis, and "What do you mean, boy." shouted an a moment later he saw that rabbit's tail angry voice, "shooting that rabbit?" pinned to Mavis's cap, and sudden rage The boy looked dazed. of jealousy nearly shook him from the "Why, wasn't you atter him?" fence. He was too far away to see Mar¬ jorie's smile, but he did see her eyes rove He looked around and in a moment he about the field and apparently catch sight knew several of them, but nobody, it was of him, for as the rest turned to the hunt plain, remembered him. she rode straight for him, for she remem• The girl with the white girth was Mar¬ bered the distress of his face and he looked jorie, the boy on the black thoroughbred very lonely. was Gray, and coming in an awkward gallop on the sorrel mule was Colonel "Little boy," she called, and the boy Pendleton. None of these people could stared with amazement and rage, but the mean to do him harm, and Jason dropped joke was too much for him and he laughed his pistol in his holster and, with a curious scornfully. dignity for so ragged an atom, turned in "Little gal," he mimicked, "air you silence away, and only the girl with the a-talkin' to me?" white girth noticed the quiver of his lips The girl gasped, reddened, lifted her and the angry starting of tears. chin haughtily, and raised her riding- As he started to mount the old mare, whip to whirl away from the rude little the excited yells coming from the fields stranger, but his steady eyes held hers were too much for him, and he climbed until a flash of recognition came — and she back on the fence to watch. The hunters smiled. had parted in twain, the black thorough• "Well, I never — Uncle Bob!" she cried bred leading one wing, the iron-gray excitedly and imperiously, and as the the other — both after a scurrying rabbit. colonel lumbered toward her on his sorrel Close behind the black horse was the mount, she called with sparkling eyes, white girth and close behind was a pony "Don't you know him?" in full run. Under the brow of the hill The puzzled face of the colonel broke they swept and parallel with the fence, into a hearty smile. and as they went by the boy strained " Well, bless my soul, it's Jason. You've eager widening eyes, for on the pony was come up to see your folks?" The Heart of the Hills 55

And then he explained what Marjorie for her to "go on back," the old habit of meant to explain. obedience turned her, but she knew he "We're not hunting with guns — we would soon follows just chase 'em. Hang your artillery on a The field was going mad now, horses fence-rail, bring your horse through that were dashing and crashing together, the gate, and join us." men were swinging to the ground and He turned and Marjorie, with him, were pushed and trampled in a wild called back over her shoulder: "Hurry clutch for Mollie's long ears, and Jason up now, Jason." could see that the contest between them Little Jason sat still, but he saw Mar• was who should get the most game. The jorie ride straight for the pony, he heard big mule was threshing the weeds like a her cry to Mavis, and saw her wave her tornado, and crossing the field at a heavy hand toward him, and then Mavis rode gallop he stopped suddenly at a ditch, the for him at a gallop, waving her whip to girth broke, and the colonel went over the him as she came; but the boy gave no long ears. There was a shriek of laugh• answering signal, but sat still, hard-eyed, ter, in which Jason from his perch joined, cool. Before she was within twenty yards and with a bray of freedom the mule of him he had taken in every detail of the made for home. Apparently that field changes in her and the level look of his was hunted out now, and when the hunt• eyes stopped her happy cry, and made ers crossed another pike and went into her grow quite pale with the old terror of another field too far away for the boy to giving him offence. Her hair looked dif• see the fun, he mounted his old mare and ferent, her clothes were different, she rode slowdy after them, and a little later wore gloves, and she had a stick in one Mavis heard a familiar yell, and Jason hand with a head like a cane and a loop flew by her with his pistol flopping on his of leather at the other end, and for these hip, his hat in his hand, and his face fren• drawbacks, the old light in her eyes and zied and gone wild. The thoroughbred face failed to make up, for while Jason passed him like a swallow, but the rabbit looked, Mavis was looking, too, and the twisted back on his trail and Mavis saw boy saw her eyes travelling him down Marjorie leap lightly from her saddle, from head to foot, and somehow he was Jason fling himself from his, and then reminded of the way Marjorie had looked both were hidden by the crush of horses at him back in the mountains and some• around them, and from the midst rose how he felt that the change that he re• sharp cries of warning and fear. sented in Mavis went deeper than her She saw Gray's face white with terror, clothes. The morbidly sensitive spirit and then she saw Marjorie picking herself of the mountaineer in him was hurt, the up from the ground and Jason swaying chasm yawned instead of closing, and all dizzily on his feet with a rabbit in his he said shortly was: hand. "Whar'd you git them new-fangled " 'Tain't nothin'," he said stoutly, and things? " he grinned his admiration openly for Mar• "Marjorie give 'em to me. She said jorie, who looked such anxiety for him. fer you to bring yo' hoss in — hit's more "You ain't afeerd o' nothin', air ye, an' fun than I ever knowed in my life up I reckon this rabbit tail is a-goin' to you," here." and he handed it to her and turned to his "Hit is?" he half sneered. "Well, you horse. The boy had jerked Marjorie git back to yo' high-falutin' friends an' from under the thoroughbred's hoofs and tell 'em I don't hunt nothin' that-a-way." then gone on recklessly after the rabbit, "I'll stop right now an' go home with ye. getting a glancing blow from one of those I guess you've come to see yo' mammy.'' hoofs himself. "Well, I hain't ridin' aroun' just fer my Marjorie smiled. health exactly." "Thank you, little—man," and Jason He had suddenly risen on the fence as grinned again, but his head was dizzy and the cries in the field swelled in a chorus, he did not ride after the crowd. and she saw how strong the temptation "I'm afeerd fer this ole nag," he lied to within him was, and so, when he repeated Colonel Pendleton, for he was faint at the 5(3 The Heart of the Hills

stomach and the world had begun to turn along beside Jason on Marjorie's pony, around. Then he made one clutch for the for Marjorie would not have it other• old nag's mane, missed it, and rolled sense• wise. No wonder that Mavis loved the less to the ground. land. Not long afterward he opened his eyes "I jerked the gal outen the way." ex• to find his head in the colonel's lap, Mar- plained Jason, " 'cause she was a gal an' jorie bathing his forehead with a wet had no business messin' with men folks.'' handkerchief, and Gray near by, still a "Of co'se," Mavis agreed, for she was little pale from remorse for his careless• just as contemptuous as he over the fuss ness and Marjorie's narrow escape, and that had been made of the incident. Mavis the most unconcerned of all — and he "But she ain't afeerd o' nuthin." was much ashamed. Rudely he brushed This was a little too much. Marjorie's consoling hand away and wrig• "I ain't nuther." gled away from the colonel to his knees. "Co'se you ain't." "Shucks!" he said, with great disgust. There was no credit for Mavis—her courage was a matter of course; but with The shadows were stretching fast, it the stranger-girl, a "furriner"—that was was too late to try another field, so back different. There was silence for a while. they started through the radiant air, "Wasn't it lots o' fun, Jasie?" laughing, talking, bantering, living over "Bully," was the absent-minded an• the incidents of the day, the men with one swer, for Jason was looking at the strange• leg swung for rest over the pommel of the ness of the night. It was curious not to their saddles, the girls with habits dis• see the big bulks of the mountains and to ordered and torn, hair down, and all tired, see so many stars. In the mountains he but all flushed, clear-eyed, happy. The had to look straight up to see stars at leaves — russet, gold, and crimson — were all and now they hung almost to the level dropping to the autumn-greening earth, of his eves. the sunlight was as yellow as the wings of "How's the folks?" asked Mavis. a butterfly and on the horizon was a faint " Stirrin '. Air ye goin' to school up haze that shadowed the coming Indian here?" summer. But still it was warm enough "Yes, an' who you reckon the school• for a great spread on the lawn, and what teacher is?" a feast for mountain eyes — chicken, tur• Jason shook his head. key, cold ham, pickles, croquettes, creams, " The jologist." jellies, beaten biscuits. And what happy "Well, by Heck." laughter and thoughtful courtesy and "An" he's always axin' me about you mellow kindness — particularly to the lit• an' if you air goin' to school." tle mountain pair, for in the mountains For a while more they rode in silence. they had given the Pendletons the best " I went to that new furrin school down they had and now the best was theirs. in the mountains," yawned the boy, "fer Inside fires were being lighted in the big 'bout two hours. They're gittin' too fireplaces and quiet, solid, old-fashioned high-falutin' to suit me. They tried to English comfort everywhere the blaze git me to wear gal's stockin's like they do brought out. up here an' I jes' laughed at 'em. Then Already two darkey fiddlers were wait• they tried to git me to make up beds an' I ing on the back porch for a dram, and tol' 'em I wasn't goin' to wear gal's clothes when the darkness settled the fiddles were ner do a gal's work an' so I run away." talking old tunes and nimble feet were He did not tell his reason for leaving the busy. And little Jason did his wonderful mountains altogether, for Mavis, too, was dancing and Gray did his, and round about, a girl, and he did not confide in women— the window seats and the tall columns of not yet. the porch heard again from lovers what But the girl was woman enough to re• they had been listening to for so long. member that the last time she had seen And at midnight the hunters rode forth him he had said that he was going to come again in pairs into the crisp, brilliant air for her some day. There was no sign and under the kindly moon, Mavis jogging of that resolution, however, in either his The Heart of the Hills 57 manner or his words now, and for some Silence followed below and the girl lay reason she was rather glad. awake and trembling in her bed. "Every boy wears clothes like that up "Who was it?" Steve asked at last. here. They calls 'em knickerbockers." "That's my business," said little Jason, "Huh!" grunted Jason. "Hit sounds and the silence was broken no more, and like 'em." Mavis lay with new thoughts and feelings "Air ye still shootin' at that ole tree?" racking her brain and her heart. Once "Yep, an' I kin hit the belly-band two she had driven to town with Marjorie shots out o' three." and Gray, and a man had come to the Mavis raised her dark eyes with a look carriage and cheerily shaken hands with of apprehension, for she knew what that them both, and after he was gone Gray meant; when he could hit it three times looked very grave and Marjorie was half running he was going after the man who unconsciously wiping her right hand with had killed his father. But she asked no her handkerchief. more questions, for while the boy could "He killed a man," was Marjorie's hor• not forbear to boast about his marksman• rified whisper of explanation, and now ship, further information was beyond her if they should hear what she had heard sphere and she knew it. they would feel the same way toward her When they came to the lane leading to own cousin, Jason Hawn. She had never her home, Jason turned down it of his own had such a feeling in the mountains, but accord. she had it now, and she wondered whether "How'd you know whar we live?" she could ever be quite the same toward "I was here this mornin' an' I seed my Jason again. mammy. Yo' daddy wasn't thar. Mavis smiled silently to herself; he XII had found out thus where she was and he had followed her. At the little stable CHRISTMAS was approaching and no Jason unsaddled the horses and turned greater wonder had ever dawned on the both out in the yard while Mavis went lives of Mavis and Jason than the way within and Steve Hawn appeared at the these people in the settlements made ready door in his underclothes when Jason for it. In the mountains many had never stepped upon the porch. heard of Christmas and none of Christ• "Hello, Jason!" mas stockings, Santa Claus, and catching "Hello, Steve!" answered the boy, but Christmas gifts—not even the Hawns. they did not shake hands, not because of But Mavis and Jason had known of the hard feeling between them, but be• Christmas, had celebrated it after the cause it was not mountain custom. mountain way, and knew, moreover, what "Come on in an' lay down." the blue-grass children did not know, of Mavis had gone upstairs, but she could old Christmas as well, which came just hear the voices below her. If Mavis had twelve days after the new. At mid• been hesitant about asking questions, as night of old Christmas, so the old folks had been the boy's mother as well, Steve in the mountains said, the elders bloomed was not. and the beasts of the field and the cattle "Whut'd you come up here fer?" in the barn kneeled lowing and moaning, " Same reason as you once left the moun• and once the two children had slipped tains—I got inter trouble." out of their grandfather's house to the Steve was startled and he frowned, but barn and waited to watch the cattle and the boy gazed coolly back into his angry to listen to them, but they suffered from eyes. the cold, and when they told what they "Whut kind o' trouble?" had done next morning, their grandfather " Same as you—I shot a feller." said the said they had not waited long enough, boy imperturbably. for it happened just at midnight; and Little Mavis heard a groan from her when Mavis and Jason told Marjorie and stepmother, an angry oath from her fa• Gray of old Christmas they all agreed ther, and a curious pang of horror pierced they would wait up this time till mid• her. night sure. 58 The Heart of the Hills

As for new Christmas in the hills, the on you thought you'd killed him, but he women paid little attention to it. and to stumbled over a root an' fell down just as the men it meant " a jug of liquor, a pistol you shot. He says you missed him a mile. in each hand, and a galloping nag." Al• He says you couldn't hit a barn in plain ways, indeed, it meant drinking, and tar• daylight." And he started away. get-shooting to see "who should drink and A furious oath broke from Jason's gap• who should smell," for the man who made ing mouth, Steve laughed, and if the boy's a bad shot got nothing but a smell from pistol had been in his hand, he might in the jug until he had redeemed himself. his rage have shown Arch as he rode away So, Steve Hawn and Jason got ready in what his marksmanship could be even in their own way and Mavis and Martha the dark, but even with his uncle's laugh, Hawn accepted their rude preparations too, coming back to him he had to turn as a matter of course. quickly into the house and let his wrath At four o'clock in the afternoon before bite silently inward. Christmas Eve darkies began springing But Mavis's eyes were like moist stars. around the corners of the twin houses, and "Oh, Jasie, I'm so glad," she said, but from closets and from behind doors, upon he only stared and turned roughly on the white folks and shouting "Christmas toward the jug in the corner. gift," for to the one who said the greet• Before day next morning the children ing first the gift came, and it is safe to in the big houses were making the walls say that no darkey in the blue-grass was ring with laughter and shouts of joy. caught that day. And the Pendleton clan Rockets whizzed against the dawn and made ready to make merry. Kinspeople firecrackers popped unceasingly and now gathered at the old general's ancient home and then a loaded anvil boomed through and at the twin houses on either side the crackling air, but there was no happy of the road. Stockings were hung up awakening for little Jason. All night his and eager-eyed children went to rest• pride had smarted like a hornet sting, his less dreams of their holiday king. Steve sleep was restless and bitter with dreams Hawn, too, had made ready with boxes of of revenge, and the hot current in his cartridges and two jugs of red liquor, and veins surged back and forth in the old he and Jason did not wait for the mor• channel of hate for the slayer of his fa• row to make merry. And Uncle Arch ther. Xext morning his blood-shot eyes Hawn happened to come in that night, opened fierce and sullen and he started but he was chary of the cup, and he the day with a visit to the whiskey jug frowned with displeasure at Jason, who and then he filled his belt and pockets was taking his dram with Steve like a with cartridges. man, and he showed displeasure before he Early in the afternoon Marjorie and rode away that night by planting a thorn Gray drove over with Christmas greetings in the very heart of Jason's sensitive soul. and little presents. Mavis went out to When he had- climbed on his horse he meet them, and when Jason half staggered turned to Jason. out to the gate, the visitors called to him "Jason," he drawled, "you can come merrily and became instantly grave and back home now when you git good an' still. Mavis flushed, Marjorie paled with ready. Thar ain't no trouble down thar horror and disgust, and Gray flamed just now, an' Babe Honeycutt ain't lookin' with wonder and contempt and quickly fer you." whipped up his horse — the mountain Jason gasped. He had not dared to ask boy was drunk. a single question about the one thing that Jason stared after them, knowing some• had been torturing his curiosity and his thing had suddenly gone wrong, and while soul, and Arch was bringing it out before he said nothing, hisfacegotalltheangrier, them all as though it were the most casual and he rushed in for his belt and pistol, and unimportant matter in the world. and shaking his head from side to side, Steve and his wife looked amazed and swaggered out to the stable and began Mavis's heart quickened. saddling his old mare. Mavis stood in "Babe ain't lookin' fer ye," Arch the doorway frightened and ashamed, the drawled on, "he's laughin' at ye. I reck• boy's mother plead with him to come into The Heart of the Hills 59

the house and lie down, but without a he felt sober now and he drew a bottle from word to either he mounted with difficulty his hip-pocket and pulled at it hard and and rode down the road. Steve Hawn, long. The old nag grazing above him had who had been silently watching him, paid no more attention to the fusillade laughed. than to the buzzing of flies. He mounted "Let him alone — he ain't goin' to do her, and Gray, riding at a gallop to make nothin'." out what the unearthly racket going on in Down the road the boy rode with more the hollow was, saw the boy going at full drunken swagger than his years in the speed in a circle about the tree, firing and wake of Marjorie and Gray — unconscious• yelling, and as Gray himself in a moment ly in the wake of anything that was even more would be in range, he shouted a warn• critical, much less hostile, and in front of ing. Jason stopped and waited with bel• Gray's house he pulled up and gazed long ligerent eyes as Gray rode toward him. at the pillars and the broad open door, "I say, Jason," Gray smiled, "I'm but not a soul was in sight and he paced afraid my father wouldn't like that— slowdy on. A few hundred yards down you've pretty near killed that tree." the turnpike he pulled up again and long Jason stared, amazed. and critically surveyed a woodland. His "Fust time I ever heerd of anybody not eye caught one lone tree in the centre of wantin' a feller to shoot at a tree." an amphitheatrical hollow just visible over Gray saw that he was in earnest and he the slope of a hill. The look of the tree in• kept on, smiling. terested him, for its growth was strange, "Well, we haven't got as many trees and he opened the gate and rode across here as you have down in the mountains, the thick turf toward it. The bark was and up here they're more valuable." smooth and the tree was the size of a man's The last words were unfortunate. body, and he dismounted, nodding his "Looks like you keer a heep fer yo' head up and down with much satisfaction. trees," sneered the mountain boy with a Standing close to the tree, he pulled out wave of his pistol toward a demolished his knife and cut out a square of the bark woodland; "an' if our trees air so wuth- as high as the first button of his coat and less, whut do you furriners come down moving around the trunk cut out several thar and rob us of 'em fer?" more squares at the same level. The sneer, the tone, and the bitter em• "I reckon," he muttered, "that's whar phasis on the one ugly word turned Gray's his heart is yit, if I ain't growed too much." face quite red. Then he led the old mare to higher "You mustn't say anything like that ground, came back, levelled his pistol, and to me," was his answer, and the self- moving in a circle around the tree, pulled control in his voice but helped make the the trigger opposite each square, and with mountain boy lose his at once and com• every shot he grunted: pletely. He rode straight for Gray and "Can't hit a barn, can't I, by Heck!" pulled in, waving his pistol crazily before In each square a bullet went home. the latter's face, and Gray could actually Then he reloaded and walked rapidly hear the grinding of his teeth. around the tree, still firing. "Go git yo' gun! Git yo' gun!" "An' I reckon that's a-makin' some Gray turned very pale, but he showed nail-holes fer his galluses!" no fear. And reloading again he ran around the "I don't know what's the matter with tree, firing. you," he said steadily, "but you must be "An' mebbe I couldn't still git him if I drunk." was hikin' fer the corner of a house an' was "Go git yo' gun!" was the furious in a leetle grain of a hurry to git out o' answer. "Go git yo' gun!" his range." "Boys don't fight with guns in this Examining results at a close range, the country, but " boy was quite satisfied—hardly a shot had " You're a d—d coward," yelled Jason. struck without a band three inches in Gray's fist shot through the mist of width around the tree. There was one rage that suddenly blinded him,catching further test that he had not yet made; but Jason on the point of the chin, and as the The Heart of the Hills mountain boy spun half around in his "I better be goin' now — this ain't no saddle, Gray caught the pistol in both place fer me." hands and in the struggle both rolled, still The school-master gravely handed the clutching the weapon, to the ground, weapon to him. Gray saying with quiet fury: "I'm coming over to have a talk with "Drop that pistol and I'll lick hell out you, Jason," he said. of you!" The boy made no answer. He climbed There was no answer but the twist of on his horse slowly. His face was very Jason's wrist, and the bullet went harm• pale, and once only he swept the group lessly upward. Before he could pull the with eyes that were badgered but no longer trigger again, the sinewy fingers of a man's angry, and as they rested on Marjorie, hand closed over the weapon and pushed there was a pitiful, lonely something in it flat with the earth, and Jason's upturned them that instantly melted her and almost eyes looked into the grave face of the started her tears. Then he rode silently school-master. That face was stern and and slowly away. shamed Jason instantly. The two boys rose to their feet, and the mountain boy XIII turned away from the school-master and saw Marjorie standing ten yards away SLOWLY the lad rode westward, for the white and terror-stricken, and her eyes reason that he was not yet quite ready to when he met them blazed at him with a pass between those two big-pillared houses light that no human eye had ever turned again, and because just then whatever his on him before. The boy knew anger, way — no matter. His anger was all gone rage, hate, revenge, but contempt was now and his brain was clear, but he was new to him, and his soul was filled with bewildered. Throughout the day he had sudden shame that was no less strange, done nothing that he thought was wrong, but the spirit in him was undaunted, and and yet throughout the day he had done like a challenged young buck his head nothing that seemed to be right. This went up as he turned again to face his land was not for him — he did not under• accuser. stand the ways of it and the people and "Were you going to shoot an unarmed they did not understand him. Even the boy?" asked John Burnham gravely. rock-pecker had gone back on him, and "He hit me." though that hurt him deeply, the lad loy• "You called him a coward." ally knew that the school-master must "He hit me." have his own good reasons. The memory "He offered to fight you fist and skull." of Marjorie's look still hurt, and somehow " He had the same chance to git the gun he felt that even Mavis was vaguely on that I had." their side against him, and of a sudden the "He wasn't trying to get it in order to pang of loneliness that Marjorie saw in shoot you." his eyes so pierced him that he pulled Jason made no answer and the school• his old nag in and stood motionless in master repeated: the middle of the road. The sky was "He offered to fight you fist and skull." overcast and the air was bitter and chill; "I was too mad — but I'll fight him through the gray curtain that hung to now." the rim of the earth, the low sun swung "Boys don't fight in the presence of like a cooling ball of fire and under it the young ladies." gray fields stretched with such desolation for him that he dared ride no further Gray spoke up and in his tone was the into them. And then as the lad looked contempt that was in Marjorie's eyes, across the level stillness that encircled and it made the mountain boy writhe. him, the mountains loomed suddenly "I wouldn't soil my hands on you— from it — big, still, peaceful, beckoning-— now. and made him faint with homesickness. The school-master rebuked Gray with Those mountains were behind him — his a gesture, but Jason was confused and mountains and his home that was his no sick now and he held out his hand for his longer — but, after all, any home back pistol. The Heart of the Hills 61 there was his, and that thought so rilled and so does my Uncle Bob, and Gray is his heart with a rush of gladness that sorry, and he says he is coming over to with one long breath of exultation he see you to-morrow." turned in his saddle to face those distant "I'm a-goin' home," repeated Jason unseen hills, and the old mare, following stubbornly. the movement of his body, turned, too, "Home?" repeated the girl, and her as though she, too, suddenly wanted to tone did what her look had done a mo• go home. The chill air actually seemed ment before, for she knew he had no home, to grow warmer as he trotted back, the and again the lad was filled with a throb• fields looked less desolate, and then across bing uneasiness. Her eyes dropped to them he saw flashing toward him the hos• her pony's mane, and in a moment more tile fire of a scarlet tam-o'-shanter. He she looked up with shy earnestness. was nearing the yard gate of the big house "Will you do something for me?" on the right, and from the other big house Again Jason started and of its own ac• on the left the spot of shaking crimson cord his tongue spoke words that to his was galloping toward the turnpike. He own ears were very strange. could wait until Marjorie crossed the road "Thar hain't nothin' I won't do fer ahead of him, or he could gallop ahead ye," he said, and his sturdy sincerity curi• and pass before she could reach the gate, ously disturbed Marjorie in turn, so that but his sullen pride forbade either course, her flush came back, and she went on with and so he rode straight on, and his dogged slow hesitation and with her eyes again eyes met hers as she swung the gate to fixed on her pony's neck. and turned her pony across the road. "I want you to promise me not — not to Marjorie flushed, her lips half parted to shoot anybody — unless you have to in self- speak, and Jason sullenly drew in, but as defence — and never to take another drink she said nothing, he clucked and dug his until — until you see me again." heels viciously into the old mare's sides. She could not have bewildered the boy Then the little girl raised one hand to more had she asked him never to go bare• check him and spoke hurriedly: foot again, but his eyes were solemn when "Jason, we've been talking about you, she looked up and solemnly he nodded and my Uncle Bob says you kept me from assent. getting killed." "I give ye my hand." Jason stared. The words were not literal, but merely "And the school-teacher says we don't the way the mountaineer phrases the giv• understand you — you people down in the ing of a promise, but the little girl took mountains — and that we mustn't blame them literally and she rode up to him with you for—," she paused in helpless em• slim fingers outstretched and a warm barrassment, for still the mountain boy friendly smile on her little red mouth. stared. Awkwardly the lad thrust out his dirty, " You know," she went on finally, "boys strong little hand. here don't do things that you boys do "Good-by, Jason," she said. down there---" "Good-by-—," he faltered, and still She stopped again, the tears started smiling, she finished the words for him. suddenly in her earnest eyes, and a miracle "Marjorie," she said, and unsmilingly happened to little Jason. Something he repeated: quite new surged within him, his own " Marjorie." eyes swam suddenly, and he cleared his While she passed through the gate he throat huskily. sat still and watched her, and he kept on " I hain't a-goin' to bother you folks no watching her as she galloped toward home, more," he said, and he tried to be surly, twisting in his saddle to follow her course but couldn't. " I'm a-goin'away." The around the winding road. He saw a ne• little girl's tears ceased. gro boy come out to the stile to take her "I'm sorry," she said. "I wish you'd pony, and there Marjorie, dismounting, stay here and go to school. The school• saw in turn the lad still motionless where teacher said he wanted you to do that, she had left him, and looking after her. and he says such nice things about you, She waved her whip to him and went on 62 The Heart of the Hills toward the house, and when she reached ing and wondering and troubled and the top of the steps, she turned and waved hurt. And when the four were seated to him again, but he made no answering about the fire, he did not look at her gesture, and only when the front door when he announced that he was going closed behind her, did the boy waken back home, but he saw her body start from his trance and jog slowly up the and shrink. His stepfather yawned and road. Only the rim of the red fire ball said nothing, and his mother looked on was arched over the horizon behind him into the fire. now. Winter dusk was engulfing the "When you goin', Jasie?" she asked at fields and through it belated crows were last. skurrying silently for protecting woods. "Daylight," he answered shortly. For a little while Jason rode with his There was a long silence. hands folded man-wise on the pommel of "Whut you goin' to do down thar?" his saddle and with manlike emotions in The lad lifted his head fiercely and his heart, for, while the mountains still looked from the woman to the man and beckoned, this land had somehow grown back again. more friendly and there was a curious "I'm a-goin' to git that land back," he something after all that he would leave be• snapped; and as there was no question, hind. What it was he hardly knew, but no comment, he settled back brooding in a pair of blue eyes, misty with mysterious his chair. tears, had sown memories in his confused "Hit wasn't right — hit couldn't 'a' been brain that he would not soon lose. He did right," he muttered, and then as though not forget the contempt that had blazed he were answering his mother's unspoken from those eyes, but he wondered now at question: the reason for the contempt. Was there "I don't know how I'm goin' to git it something that ruled this land — some• back, but if it wasn't right, thar must be thing better than the code that ruled his some way, an' I'm a-goin' to find out if hills? He had remembered every word hit takes me all my life." the geologist had ever said, for he loved His mother was still silent, though she the man, but it had remained for a strange had lifted a corner of her apron to her girl — a girl — to revive them, to give them eyes, and the lad rose and without a word actual life and plant within him a sudden of good-night climbed the stairs to go to resolve to learn for himself what it all bed. Then the mother spoke to her hus• meant, and to practise it, if he found it band angrily. good. A cold wind sprang up now and "You oughtn't to let the boy put all cutting through his thin clothes drove him the blame on me. Steve — you made me in a lope toward his mother's home. sell that land." Apparently Mavis was watching for Steve's answer was another yawn, and him through the window of the cottage, he rose to get ready for bed, and Mavis, for she ran out on the porch to meet him, too, turned indignant eyes on him, for but something in the boy's manner she had heard enough from the two to checked her, and she neither spoke nor know that her stepmother spoke the truth. asked a question while the boy took off Her father opened the door and she heard his saddle and tossed it on the steps. Nor the creak of his heavy footsteps across the did Jason give her but one glance, for the freezing porch. Her stepmother went eagerness of her face and the trust and into the kitchen and Mavis climbed the tenderness in her eyes were an uncon• stairs softly and opened Jason's door. scious reproach and made him feel guilty "Jasie!" she called. and faithless, so that he changed his "Whut you want?" mind about turning the old mare out in "Jasie, take me back home with ye, the yard and led her to the stable, merely won't you? " to get away from the little girl. A rough denial was on his lips, but her Mavis was in the kitchen when he en• voice broke into a little sob and the boy tered the house, and while they all were lay for a moment without answering. eating supper, the lad could feel his little "Whut on earth would you do down cousin's eyes on him all the time — watch• thar, Mavis?" The Heart of the Hills 63

And then he remembered how he had "How's he goin' to help hisself," asked told her that he would come for her some the girl, "when he ain't hyeh?" day, and he remembered the Hawn boast "He'll blame me fer it, but I ain't a- that a Hawn's word was as good as his blamin' you." bond and he added kindly: "Wait till The words surprised and puzzled both mornin', Mavis. I'll take ye if ye want and touched both with sympathy and a to go." little shame. The mother looked at her The door closed instantly and she was son,opened her lips again,butclosed them gone. When the lad came down before with a glance at Mavis that made her go day next morning Mavis had finished ty• out and leave them alone. ing a few things in a bundle and was push• " Jasie," she said then, "I reckon when ing it out of sight under a bed, and Jason Babe was a-playin' possum in the bushes knew what that meant. that day, he could 'a' shot ye when you "You hain't told 'em?" run down the hill." Mavis shook her head. She took his silence for assent and went "Mebbe yo' pap won't let ye." on: "He ain't hyeh," said the little girl. "That shows he don't hold no grudge "Whar is he?" agin you fer shootin' at him." "I don't know." Still Jason was silent, and a line of stern "Mavis," said the boy seriously, "I'm justice straightened the woman's lips. a boy an' hit don't make no difference "I hain't got no right to say a word, whar I go, but you're a gal an' hit looks just because Babe air my own brother. like you ought to stay with yo' daddy." Mebbe Babe knows who the man was, The girl shook her head stubbornly, but but I don't believe Babe done it. Hit he paid no attention. hain't enough that he was jes' seed a-comin' "I tell ye, I'm a-goin' back to that outen the bushes, an' afore you go a-layin' new-fangled school when I git to grand- fer Babe, all I axe ye is to make plumb pap's, an' whut'll you do?" dead shore." " I'll go with ye." It was a strange new note to come from " I've thought o' that," said the boy pa• his mother's voice, and it kept the boy tiently, "but they mought not have room still silent from helplessness and shame. fer neither one of us — an' I can take keer She had spoken calmly, but now there was o' myself any whar." a little break in her voice. "Yes," said the little girl proudly, "an' "I want ye to go back an' I'd go I'll trust ye to take keer o' me — any¬ blind fer the rest o' my days if that land whar." was yours an' was a-waitin' down thar The boy looked at her long and hard, fer ye." but there was no feminine cunning in her From the next room came the sound eyes — nothing but simple trust — and his of Mavis's restless feet, and the boy silence was a despairing assent. From rose. the kitchen his mother called them to "I hain't a-goin' to lay fer Babe, mam• breakfast. my," he said huskily; "I hain't a-goin' to "Whar's Steve?" asked the boy. lay fer nobody — now. An' don't you The mother gave the same answer as worry no more about that land." had Mavis, but she looked anxious and Half an hour later, just when day was worried. breaking, Mavis sat behind Jason with her "Mavis is a-goin' back to the moun• bundle in her lap, and the mother looked tains with me," said the boy, and the girl up at them. looked up in defiant expectation, but the "I wish I was a-goin' with ye," she mother did not even look around from said. the stove. And when they had passed out of sight " Mebbe yo' pap won't let ye," she said down the lane, she turned back into the quietly. house — weeping.

(To be continued) ARCTIC MOUNTAINEERING BY A WOMAN

MOUNT BLACKBURN

By Dora Keen

WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR

NEVER had Mount Black• a succession of crevasses, and swept by burn been so bare of snow avalanches. The only difficult high moun• as on August 15,1911, when tain that has yet been ascended is Mount our little party of seven set Saint Elias, and that by its north-east side. out to climb it. We were It is quite possible that the northern starting up from Blackburn slopes of Alaska's high mountains, which Road House, thirty-five miles to the south, are gradual and are protected from the to make the first attempt that had ever sun, are the only ones by which a success• been made to ascend it. No one had ever ful ascent can be made, but the southern been even to its base, for no one in Alaska slopes are nearer to civilization, and my climbs mountains except for gold, and to leader believed that Mount Blackburn reach this mountain meant travel up the could be climbed by its south-east side, Kennecott Glacier all the way from mile the side nearest to the railway. 192 of the Coffer River Railway, in all Mr. R. F. McClellan, of Sawtelle, Cal., more than two hundred miles from the was the trusted leader who had consented coast. Yet I had selected Mount Black• to organize and lead my expedition. He burn because the completion of the rail• had been the superintendent of the Bo• way, in April, made it the most accessible nanza Mine, at Kennecott, four miles of Alaska's dozen great snow peaks. above the Road House from which we Distance from any base of supplies, very were to start. He was familiar with the low timber and snow lines, extreme cold mountain from the mine, and believed that in winter, and the long days of summer-— the whole expedition could be made with• these are the problems of mountaineering in ten or twelve days, if at all. Our hope in Alaska which give to it, in all but dura• for a safe ascent was to find a route by tion, the character of an Arctic expedition. which we might rise fast enough to get To reach any one of its 14,000-foot above the altitude of the avalanches be• peaks requires days or weeks of the hard• fore the hour when they would begin. On est kind of travel. All of the high moun• the mountains of 6,000 to 9,000 feet along tains are relatively near to the south-west the two hundred miles of the railway, the coast of Alaska, but to reach any of them months of "slides" were May and June. from any port requires travel through a Although the season was late and hot, wilderness in which glaciers and railway surely, he thought, the danger from slides tracks are accounted the "easiest" lines was now past, except perhaps for the late of travel. afternoons, during which we could keep The timber line is at 2,500 feet, the from under. snow line at 3,000 to 0,000 feet, accord• I had not come to Alaska to climb ing to location and season. The Arctic mountains. I had come merely as a tour• Circle is near. Winter's cold is intense and ist, to see what I might, by boats and its days short. The mass of snow is enor• trains, of the wonderful glaciers and mous. Then come the long, warm days of mountains of its south-west coast, and to summer, so long that there is little time see the last pioneer region of America. for freezing at night. The south sides of My expectations had been far exceeded. the mountains are steep. The result, as Glaciers the largest outside the Antarctic, might be anticipated, is glaciers that be• high snow mountains, many of them ris• come contracted by the sun, seamed with ing directly from the sea, neither Norway 64 Arctic Mountaineering by a Woman 65

nor even the beautiful Chilean archipela• McClellan knew them all. He had wanted go had compared with the scenery of men "whom he could count on to put a south-west Alaska. Letters of introduc• hundred pounds on their backs and go tion had brought about camping trips on where he told them," and he had found the Kenai Peninsula, in search of a big them, not far from the Road House, as Kadiak bear, and there in the woods, in likewise two pack horses. John E. Bar• the cabin of a prospector, I had chanced rett and Frank Buell were from Seattle, upon my first detailed knowledge of the Ralph Felterolf from Philadelphia. "If high mountains. There, in a report of the you tell Johnnie Barrett you want to go United States Geological Survey, I had to the top of Mount Blackburn," I had read of Mount Blackburn, " never ascend• been told at the mine, "he'll get you there ed," and "worthy of the hardiest moun• if he has to pack you on his back." To taineer"; 16,140 feet high, it was within these men I added a German painter from sixty feet of the highest of the Wrangel Cordova, Walter Wolf, recommended to Mountains, of which I had expected to me because of his experience in the Alps. have only distant views from the railway. I thought it a great acquisition to have Knowing that there would be no Swiss one man who was experienced in the recog• guides in Alaska, I had had no idea of nized technique of cutting steps in ice, the serious climbing and had brought only my use of the rope, etc., all the more because personal Alpine equipment. In Seattle, my other men were not mountaineers. No and again in Cordova, I had been told one ropes in Alaska, nor are ice axes that probably I might find prospectors known. When a man perishes in a cre• who would take me up to 8,000 feet or vasse, the glacier is named for him. So more. I had expected no more. But now anxious was Wolf to go that he had said, I returned at once to Cordova, the port for "If they turn back, I will go to the top the railway, determined to try the ascent anyway." of Mount Blackburn, provided that suit• The Alaskan prepares for a "trip" by able arrangements could be made. preparing his mind to do without every The way had opened — as it always does article of comfort. "If you tell a pros• if we will but have the courage to start. pector there's gold at the top of Mount On the boat I had heard of Mr. McClellan McKinley, he'll put a couple of flapjacks as the safest and best leader I could have. in his pocket and step up," they had said I had found him en route to the mountain, to me. Mr. McClellan had landed with had secured his consent, and together we the first on the Valdez Glazier and had led had planned and completed the outfit at a party through to Dawson by compass, Cordova and at the Road House. Seattle some five hundred miles through the wil• was four days away, with boats only once derness. "I would trust my life to Mr. a week. There was no time to secure any• McClellan," the late able and courteous thing from such a distance, nor does the chief engineer of the railway. Mr. E. C. prospector consider anything necessary, Hawkins, had said to me. To my every merely "handy." Necessity and emer• inquiry his reply was, "We've thought of gency have taught him to "get along." all that," or "Don't you worry about the He knows to an ounce what he needs for men. They can take care of themselves." a "trip" as he calls an expedition. "Any None of them had been above 10,000 feet, one that can't 'pack' ninety pounds but all knew what it was to travel in winter would better not come to Alaska," they at sixty degrees below zero, for the pros• say, "for this is the least with which he pector needs the short summers for pros• can get along out 'in the hills.'" His pecting, and he has learned that to travel motto is " Never stuck. " His is the land with a dog-sled in winter is easier than to of hope. He is always "going to make a "pack" ninety pounds through the bogs, strike next year, sure," therefore always streams, alders, and fallen logs of Alaskan ready to endure and to smile, whatever "trails" in summer. "You can't freeze to happens. death at this season," they assured me. All of my men had been prospectors, all "Why how cold do you suppose it's going had been in the country between seven to be up there? It ain't going to be more and sixteen years. Americans all, Mr. than ten degrees below." So they refused 66 Arctic Mountaineering by a Woman to take more for protection than parkas Never had I dreamt that a moraine could and jumpers. The Alaskan parka is a sort be so crushing in its domination of the of overshirt. It is put on over the head scene. and comes to the knees. It is made of Great cracks and fallen blocks the size khaki with a bit of fur around face and of a house left no doubt that ice underlay wrists, and as this tickles them they pull those miles of rocks that were to lie at our it off. It keeps heat in and wind out, but right for hours as we followed the trail be• has no warmth in itself. side the glacier. In hope of game for food From the Road House a rough mining or perhaps even a bear, Mr. Barrett with trail gave fairly good going for ten miles. his gun and I kept ahead. The dogs fol• We might even make fifteen miles with lowed closely, dragging the poles for tents the horses before the last grass would be and cots. The poles caught in projecting reached. From there they must be sent roots and the little dogs would whimper back by an extra man. From there we for us to free them. Slowly the heavily would load our outfit on a sled that Mr. laden horses followed. By noon, in the Barrett had cached the winter before and marshes beside the glacier, we came on his dogs would pull the sled up the glacier huge bear tracks. "Why didn't you tell to the foot of the mountain. There were me you wanted some water, Mr. McClel• to be four dogs, but the hand-car that lan?" said Felterolf, as our leader fetched brought my baggage ran over the best dog, up some at lunch time. "I could have crippling him beyond use — so unused given you a couple of boots full." No were the dogs to the new railway. "The further word did I ever hear of wet feet dogs can climb anywhere you can go," on a trip during which they were the rule. Mr. Barrett had assured me, "and if I Here at 2,500 feet, the first day, was our have to, I can just drop them down a cliff last timber. Soon the trail lay along the by the tail." top of the lateral moraine. Timber had Our "Alaska-style" outfit consisted of given place to castellated-rock pinnacles two tents and a lean-to, the least possible that towered above us on the left. On extra clothing, two small alcohol-stoves, the right was the glacier. Ground-hogs ropes, ice-creepers made in Cordova, and mocked us with their shrill cries, but the ice-axes forged at the mine. Bacon and dogs were encumbered by the poles and beans, flour and coffee, the prospector's could not go after them, while of the stand-bys, were the chief food. Canvas many ptarmigan, all but two took care to strips with poles through the sides were to appear only after the man with the gun serve as " cots " that would raise us off the was past. ice by resting the poles on piled-up rocks or At 4 o'clock a lateral valley could be blocks of ice. Food, fuel, and shelter had crossed only by taking to the glacier at to be taken for the entire trip, for here at which the trail ended. To find and make the Road House, at only 1,500 feet, we a trail for the clumsy tired horses took were leaving civilization behind. To time. To cross the crevasses here was reach the foot of the mountain would take easy for us, but for the horses bridges of at least two days, to climb it at least a ice and rock must be built and steps week, and the entire time would be spent chopped, for never once must they be on ice and snow. An Arctic expedition in• taken on to any slanting slope. We were deed it seemed to me, and the Kenai Pen• nearing Mr. Barrett's cache, a "hole in insula had been my first experience in the wall" of the mountain-side. Two rough camping. There at least there had men were despatched thither for a Yukon always been wood, water, and game. stove. With difficulty a way back to None of them should we have on Mount "dry land" was found over the marginal Blackburn. ice, and at half-past six we camped on A beautiful glistening mass of purest grass. Willows waist-high offered the only white, its distant summit rose above fuel. Pitching only my tent, for them• the hideous desolation of the moraine of selves the men were content to throw their Kennecott Glacier as we started around bedding on the ground under canvas. At its end. The temperature was sixty-five midnight it rained. Quietly Mr. McClel• degrees at 8 A. M., a hot day for Alaska. lan rose to tuck up the sleepers, so quietly Arctic Mountaineering by a Woman 67 that Mr. Buell jumped as he felt the hand, flannel for a similar use on the way up, in sure that a big bear had him. case blizzards should make it difficult to Early the next morning two men went find the way down again. in search of the sled. Evidently a snow- Thus was our second day busily occu• slide had carried it down, for it was badly pied with necessary preparations, yet no jammed and required much repair. We advance made. A glorious sunset raised had come only fifteen miles, but from here our hopes for the morrow. At daybreak on there would be no more grass, so the we were up. Sled and supplies were horses were saddled for return. Mean• packed over the marginal ice, the load time a dog was missed. It was Jack, one lashed onto the sled, the dogs harnessed, of our two malamutes, labor saving and and the march up the glacier begun. Even clever at short cuts. "Do you see that in summer enough snow usually remained dog?" said Mr. Barrett, pointing far back on Kennecott Glacier to cover the ice-way on our trail. " He's sized up the situation below this point, so the men left promising pretty well. He sees there ain't going to that soon we should strike smooth going. be much to eat and pretty hard work and Instead, occasional ribbons of bare white he's going back with the horses." Two ice were all that now appeared between men had to help to get the horses back the great moraines that streaked the gla• over the glacier and continued down for cier. It was three miles wide. To find timber, which they packed up. ice on which progress could be made was All day it had rained, hopelessly wetting all that could be hoped for. The abnor• the willow bushes with which and the mal heat of the summer had removed the stove we were trying to cook twenty-five snow, had contracted the ice and seamed pounds of beans and fifteen pans of bis• it with crevasses so countless that for the cuits; for here at 3,000 feet was to be our next two days we seemed to encounter last fire for ten days. On Chimborazo, in them every five to twenty minutes. Wide the Andes of the equator, the last fire is and deep and long as they were, it was a lighted at 14,000 feet, with only 5,900 feet difficult tusk to find a trail, still more diffi• still to climb. On the Mexican volcanoes cult to get the sled over or around the 17,000 feet high, vegetation is found up to crevasses. The men had to work as hard 13,000 feet. On Mount Whitney at 11,• as the dogs. I alone was free to "pros• 000 feet, with only 3,000 feet left to climb. pect" ahead. The dogs too required less In the tropics the snow line may be as high direction when they could follow a leader. as 18,000 feet. On Mont Blanc, the high• Travelling as fast as I could to keep ahead est of the Alps, wood, water, food, and in order to gain time to watch to right and shelter are found in a comfortable hut at left for the crevasses ahead, still my task 10,000 feet in the midst of a glacier, with was too difficult for any good success. less than 6,000 feet of an established route Often formidable crevasses were invisible still to climb. In Alaska all is reversed, until I was within ten feet of them, for the and herein lie the difficulties of mountain upward slope was perceptible. Even be• climbing in Alaska; here, too, its interest tween crevasses the ice was rough, its sur• and adventure. To climb Mount Saint face all rills, ridges, hillocks, puddles, Elias, 18,100 feet, on which four previous streams, and gravel. Every moment the expeditions had failed, the Duke of the men were pulling or pushing, lifting or Abruzzi had to travel more than fifty lowering, righting or repairing a sled miles from the forest and to climb some loaded with seven hundred and fifty 14,000 feet above the snow line. To pounds, and yet I never heard them swear. climb Mount Blackburn we had to travel The only way I could help was by leading some twenty-five miles from the timber and at times carrying the heavy ice-picks. and to climb 10,000 feet above the snow They might cut hands or ropes if placed line. on the sled. At the least provocation the The willows at least served for flag-poles. top-heavy sled would tip over. At every The year before at Chamonix I had noticed stop down would lie all three dogs until the flags of M. Vallot placed in the course Mr. Barrett's "All right, dogs," or "Go of mapping the Glacier du Géant. I had ahead, dogs," was heard, when instantly noted their utility and had brought red they were off again. For right or left we 6S Arctic Mountaineering by a Woman had only to call to Bigelow, the wise little me each day as I realized what a woman malamute leader, "Gee a little, Biggie." might do in America. Sure of respect and or "Biggie, go haw." To the black dog, of every assistance, in Alaska at least, her Nigger, it was more often, "Nig, git into limitations need be only those within her• it," or "Nig, I'll take a lung out o' you self, her measure that of which she is ca• yet." The dogs knew their master, but pable, her development in her own hands they knew him to be kind too, and in to make or to mar. I had come to Alaska camp they were petted and played with. on a voyage of discovery. Being alone had Presently we made out three mountain seemed to put every limitation in my way, goats grazing high up at our left. The ice and now. on the contrary, my love of began to rise in great frozen billows, adventure and sport could be satisfied with broad and deep crevasses in the as never before, because of the character trough of the waves. The angles up which of the men of Alaska. I was actually the sled must be coaxed became so steep launched on an expedition of my own, the that it was better to try an entirely differ• most adventurous and hazardous I could ent part of the glacier. To do so involved desire, yet sure of being cared for in safety packing over a great moraine. We could with consideration and respect. not hope to reach the foot of the moun• An Arctic expedition indeed it seemed tain that night, and the moraine offered as I crawled into my sleeping-bag. The protection for a camp. aneroid showed 4.500 feet. There was The wind was right for a goat hunt and only the sun to warm us — when it shone. we needed the goats for the dogs. For The only way to dry anything was to my pleasure, Mr. Barrett proposed that I sleep on it, and when the nights were not should go along. Stopping only for a bite very long, the clothes were not very dry of chocolate, and leaving three men to in the morning. The malamutes had pitch camp, off we went, Mr. Barrett, curled up on a rock. It was warmer than Wolf, and I. It was already 5 o'clock, and the ice. Wolf could not get warm. He between us and the goats lay a mile of paced the ice, made coffee, and rolled crevasses and some 700 feet of steep climb• rocks into the crevasses. Thus disturbed ing. Hard and fast we travelled, jumping and raised just too little above the ice to crevasses, crawling up and down marginal be warm, the rest of us had not slept ice ridges, climbing straight up shale either when at half-past four we emerged slopes and across precipitous snow. "Go from our tents to survey Mount Black• on all fours," whispered Mr. Barrett as burn. This first near view did indeed we neared our wary game, "so if they see make every visible route look hopeless to you they'll think it an animal." But the me as I scanned each possible route in shale would slide, and just as we were turn with my glasses for a way up. Not within shot, the sentinel goat heard and one of us could find a route all the way to gave warning. Up they started. They the top. But the Alaskans are no "quit• could climb faster than we. Darkness was ters." We intended to try. All but Wolf. approaching, and we had still to return. At half-past six our Alpinist turned back, At least I had won the confidence of my "just because it was a bit chilly," as the men. "If you can follow them goats, I men put it. One of my friends has said guess you can climb Mount Blackburn," that he was the only sensible member of was their greeting, as empty-handed and the party. overheated, just at dark, we came in to The fourth day was as hard as the third, the cheerless prospect of sleeping on the the ice just as bad, with one less man to ice. I had to break three-eighths of an help. We had cached one hundred and inch of ice on the water of the crevasse twenty pounds of food for the return. At where I went to wash, and it was dark and last, in the early afternoon, hope rose as chill as at half-past nine we ate our first we descried snow in the ice ahead. Even real meal since daybreak. this hot summer the snow line was at It was my first goat hunt. It had been 0,000 feet. The surface became more good sport, reward enough indeed to feel level. Then the snow cover gave smooth that I was actually able to do it. A new going for just an hour. Then the sun grew feeling of confidence, new zest came over hot. The snow grew slushy and wet us. Arctic Mountaineering by a Woman 69

Soon great ice terraces loomed on either kept me awake, but it was now chilly, for side with chasm-like crevasses between. at 5 o'clock the sun had disappeared be• The only hope was to keep to the trough hind the mountain. It was snowing as we in the centre. Soon this too became a got supper, and there was slush on the questionable course, for deep drifts of half-inch ice of the crevasses below, snow only partially filled the crevasses, whither we must go for water. often merely concealed them. The sun Steep and badly broken glaciers, steep• was so hot that the snow commenced to er ridges all crested with ice, and a fairly give way under our weight. The crevasses smooth snow summit, such was the sight were as many as before, only now much that Mount Blackburn presented to our more dangerous because often invisible. view. It was the fifth day, with food for We began to step through into them. I only eight days more and every route insisted that Mr. McClellan take the snow- looking hopelessly difficult and dangerous shoes as he went ahead prospecting. I for men with heavy packs. The sled and

Mount Blackburn and Kennecott Glacier. From Bonanza Mountain thirty miles away. followed. For my own safety and for those all else possible would have to be left at behind I sounded every step with my ice- this base camp, and from here, at 6,500 axe. Thinking we should soon get to camp, feet, food, fuel, and shelter would have to Mr. Barrett had gone off after another be carried by men and dogs nearly to the goat far up on the right, leaving only two top. Progress would be so slow and the men for the sled. Several times the trail liability to blizzards so great that it would proved false and we had to wait in the never be safe to be far from food and shel• burning reflection of the melting snow for ter, and this very necessity for heavy packs fifteen minutes or more while a new lead would compel the choice of a route that was tried. It began to look serious, as if should be neither too steep nor too diffi• we never should reach that protected rocky cult if we were to advance at all. Nearly point at the end of a rock ridge at the head 10,000 feet of snow and ice remained to of this glacier upon which we had deter• be climbed, with the certainty of such fre• mined to place our base camp. At last a quent snowfalls that the snow would have way was found, a bad one, but it held us. no time to harden, would make the ascent Four and a half hours of this most dan• laborious, and would slide with the first gerous going had we had when at six- hot sun. To climb at night was impossible. thirty we reached safety. Each man had Such routes could not be attempted in the fallen in twice to the waist. To our relief dark. Indeed, one of the best gauges of Mr. Barrett soon came in. He was empty- the difficulty of a mountain ascent is the handed but safe. It had taken us four elevation remaining to be climbed above days to reach the base of Mount Black• the snow line. It is chiefly the 10,000 or burn, which lay three miles across from 15,000 feet that have to be climbed above us, four days to make thirty-five miles the snow line that make the high moun• and to rise 5,000 feet up Kennecott Gla• tains of Alaska among the most difficult cier. My hands were so burnt that they of mountain expeditions. The author leading thewa y to Mount Blackburn. Arctic Mountaineering by a Woman 71

Above 12,000 feet the ascent would be Again I was alone in the great silence of easy. This was one reason why I had this wonder world. The better to behold chosen to try this mountain by this side. and to photograph the great amphitheatre Experience in the Alps and the Andes had of ice, snow, and rock at the foot of which taught me to avoid difficult work above we were camped, cautiously I climbed the 15,000 feet, and I had never been above rock ridge above me, climbed till the tents 16,000 feet. The maps of the United were specks, till they disappeared from States Geological Survey — made from near view. A panorama secured, I sat down our first camp-— to drink in forever showed the con• the glory and tour lines to be beauty about me. gradual above 12, Already I was re• 000 feet, but how paid for coming. to reach 12,000 feet A world without there was the prob• limitations was lem. With all routes unfolded to me, alike looking hope• a world in which I less, the shortest felt as if the bonds seemed the best to that held me to try first. earth were loosed, Off went Mr. Mc¬ a world of purity Cleilan and Mr. the sight of which Barrett to try to ennobled a world of find a way up what power, of majesty, I later named Bar• a vision to inspire, rett Glacier, while to uplift, to give the other two went peace and strength, back to relay up the to beget reverence supplies we had and humility. cached. Clearly The struggles to we should need achieve, the yearn• them all and we ing to attain on the Too dangerous to stop under such walls, in a hot might get a goat for sun, to chop a way up. mountain, are they the return. Since not symbolic of life? the men when "empty"-—as they call it Life demands courage. We need strength to travel without a pack — could travel to endure and to suffer. Is it not in itself faster than I, to save time I remained in worth while to climb if in so doing we lose camp, keeping house. This time I saw to all sense of fear? it that both sets of men were roped. So From such contemplation there was the siege of Mount Blackburn began. For only an occasional sound as of thunder to the first time human foot was set on its arouse me. Mount Blackburn at the left, beautiful glaciers. Mount Reynolds at the right, below me It was after six when the relay party the Kennecott Glacier hemmed in by the came in, just as I was beginning to worry lower slopes of the great mountains, half about them, and 9 o'clock, dusk, when way between Mount Reynolds and the the men from Barrett Glacier returned. distant mine, Mount Regal, 13,000 feet-— Their report was not encouraging. It had such was the view unfolded to me. Now taken three hours to reach the foot of the and again a mighty roar led my eye to glacier and as much more to rise 1,600 the cliffs across the Reynolds Glacier. feet on it. There was danger from ava• Great ice masses crowned them. Loosened lanches, but a safe way might be found; by the sun they were breaking off and another day would tell. At daybreak pouring like gentle waterfalls down the they would return to the attack with a gullies all the way to the glaciers fifteen third man, while the fourth should go in hundred feet below. Would the goat-hunt• the other direction after the elusive goat. er over there take warning? Would he This time they took snow-shoes. keep off and from under those cliffs? I Sounding for hidden crevasses. Such as that la the foreground. could not once find him with my glasses. hard could not be followed. The best Whenever I could make out the others they could do would be to be there and at they seemed to be in difficulty, making slow work at daybreak. When I had first ar• progress. rived in Cordova, on July 5, there had Hardly was I back at camp when the been no night at all. merely twilight from others also returned, Felterolf without his 10.30 p. M. until 1.30 A. M. Now it was goat, the others because it had been un• dark from 9.30 P. M. until 3 A. M.. and the safe to remain on that cascading glacier at ice did not begin to break off much before that time of day. Avalanches and falling o \. M. Between 3 a. m. 9 A. M. were the stones had warned them off. Only five only safe hours to be at work on such gla• hundred feet had been gained. Their ciers at this time of year. A little later plan now was for Mr. Barrett and Mr. there would be new snow sliding. If the Felterolf to return that night, to camp at ascent could not be made now, probably the foot of Barrett Glacier, and to make winter. January or February, or perhaps a last determined effort the next day. To spring, would be the only time. find a trail on unknown glaciers of such a They reported precipitous walls of ice character by lantern was dangerous. The seventy-five and one hundred feet in Swiss plan of a start at night when all is height under and on which they must Arctic Mountaineering by a Woman 73

work. Ever since 11 that morning the av• I could see only a cloud of falling snow alanches had been incessant. At 5.30 the on that part of the glacier for which my men two men left to spend one or two nights had been heading an hour before! Search on the glacier. For sleeping on snow, a as I would, I could not find them. My anx• lean-to, a canvas, a sleeping-bag, and an iety was intense. At 11 I found them, eiderdown were their protection. Tea, ba• but had no way to call them in. Only for con, sandwiches, chocolate, and beef ex• this signal had we not provided. They tract in smallest quantities were the only were back at the same place as at 5 A. M. food. For cooking, The slides were melting water, heat, fewer to-day. The light, and signals, dogs slept. "What• six candles and two ever you do, don't tin cans were to let the dogs loose," suffice. Ropes, Mr. Barrett had socks, and mitts said, "for Bigelow completed the is liable to miss me outfit. and might take my Mr. McClellan trail even after two and Mr. Buell were days." to leave at day• Never was I so break to try a sec• glad to see two men ond alternative as when, at 6 p. M., route, for the days Mr. McClellan and were passing, food Mr. Buell suddenly and fuel was going. appeared amid the We turned in early, crevasses below me. I to watch the hours I told them of my and call the men at fears for the other midnight. At 8.45 two, of the inces• p. m., at 10.15, At sant avalanches on 1 A. M. came ava• that glacier. "Oh, lanches loud enough they're all right," to waken us. All No quick way up and no time to chop a way. Tons of ice ready to fall and all holes Mr. McClellan as• night they never under foot. sured me. "They're ceased. What of just waiting until those two men? Would the spot they had it's hard enough to travel. They'll be in in selected prove as safe as they believed? the morning." Good news he brought, too. By the first streaks of dawn Mr. McClel• His route was possible and safe. They lan and Mr. Buell were off. They were to had climbed my ridge all the way to the try the ridge that I had rejected because saddle, and believed that either this ridge of its bad snow saddle. Not once could I or the glacier to the left of it — McClellan see them all day long. Glacier I named it — would offer a way Again I was alone, and the evening and to the top. the morning were the seventh day. In At last we had a way to signal to the vain I tried to sleep, took pictures, washed others. "Route possible" — the signal dishes, clothes, even bathed in the icy that we had expected from them—was water of a choked crevasse. The sun was indicated by two candles in tin-can re• so hot that I shed what clothes I could, flectors. Whatever their success, I was and finally sat mending in the shade of my unwilling that they or any one should tent. Ever and anon I scanned the gla• longer risk his life amid the beautiful but ciers for my men. At 5 A. M. I had seen terrible avalanches of Barrett Glacier. the two on Barrett Glacier, and again at Wearied and blistered by their long day in 7. This time they were working in a new heat that they estimated at one hundred direction, but no higher up. At S came a and twenty degrees in the sun, I urged the roar from an avalanche that seemed as if men to sleep while I should watch. The it would never cease. For full five minutes night was calm and warm. I placed my 74 Arctic Mountaineering by a Woman

sleeping-bag on the rocks and had only to on the rock ridge. The others likewise open my eyes once a half hour in order to had seen them, signalled, and returned. look for lights on the mountain, if by By 10 o'clock all were in, but the snow was chance I could see them so far, if indeed already too soft below us to start for the my men were alive. Never had the stars new route. The men needed sleep and food. seemed more beautiful, but two answering They had been safely at their camp while candles were all that I wanted to see. One I had been so worried. Mr. Felterolf of my candles wasted and its can rolled off thought that he must have slept four hours, into a crevasse. We had only one more "for there were four hours there I didn't can. Both candles burned out and I re• feel Johnnie shake." Clothes were dried in placed them, but still no answer came the sun and all made ready for moving from the glacier. At 3 1 called to Air. camp at an early hour on the morrow. McClellan, suggesting that they go in Again the night was warm and calm. search. " It ain't no use now," he replied. At 11 Mr. McClellan called me to be• "If anything's happened, it's too late hold a sight of which I had never seen the now. You'll see. They'll be in as soon like. In changing colors and forms, the as it's light." Yet before 6 he and Mr. aurora borealis streaked the sky. It was Buell started in search, just because of my perhaps four times as wide as the Milky anxiety. Way, and nearer to the aurora of the A half hour later I saw the two men on Arctic explorers than I had ever expected Barrett Glacier, They were in the SAME to see. Again I was glad that I had come. place as the day before, still laboring The snow was hard and the going good among the huge crevasses. Never had I as at 5 A. M. of the ninth day of "this ex• been more thankful. I lost not a moment hibition," as Mr. Buell always called it, in placing the day signals, two canvases, we set off for McClellan Glacier or the

Getting to Mount Blackburn. One of the bottomless crevassess that must be crossed every five to twenty minutes DURING two days.—Page 67. Slow climbing up McClellan Glacier. ridge adjoining it. Each man was pack• seemed better to continue here, where the ing seventy pounds, each dog twenty dogs could certainly carry their packs, pounds. Since I could puck no more than rather than to risk the balancing of heavy fourteen pounds, including my camera, I packs up the loose bowlders and limestone asked to take two dogs; for each dog must of which the ridge was composed. We be chained to some one or led by the hand, had not risen far when difficulties began lest he break through into a crevasse. to delay us. Crevasses presented real Presently my camera was all that I could problems. We roped. Over or around manage. I had to give up the dogs. Even them, down, up and on we went — we were my "little bundle," as they called my rising, but so was the sun, and our only pack, would mysteriously disappear into hope was to get to a safe altitude before that of one of my overladen men so soon the sun should start the avalanches. This as I unshipped it. My safety, my success, glacier was less steep than Barrett Glacier, and my comfort were still their only less liable to be swept by avalanches, but thought. Men could not have worked still it was broken enough to be dangerous harder, more cheerfully, nor more unself• at its lower levels at mid-day. Ice walls of ishly. formidable dimensions began to rise in our By 6 we had reached McClellan Gla• path. On both sides the whole surface was cier and began to rise fast, so fast that it broken by great chasm-like crevasses fif- 75 76 Arctic Mountaineering by a Woman teen to twenty-five feet across. Only in more broken and difficult the glacier be• the middle was advance possible, and even came. here the way grew so puzzling, the loss of By half-past eight, leaving packs and time so great, as one point after another dogs with two men, Mr. McClellan, Mr. delayed us, that we began to doubt of Barrett, and I started up in order to see

The fifteen foot crevasses of McClellan Glacier among which we had been. Taken from 700 feet above. success. The snowy mantle that had given whether it was worth while to go any far• the only security to our footing began to ther. Up, down, over and into canyons thaw, and we to step into holes. I pound• of ice we worked. Now to right, now to ed each step with my foot, as I had been left we tried to find a way. Over loosely taught in the Alps. My men, on the con• wedged masses, under walls and pinnacles trary, trod quickly and lightly and fell in that towered straight above us, over huge only half as often. They rallied me. Again blocks, on we went. Twenty times I was the dogs caused delays, necessitated easier sure there was no way to continue. Swiss routes, and again had to be thrown across guides would not have ventured to go on. crevasses. They could not sound their I was enraptured with the fantastic beauty footing. To have a dog drag back just of the shapes about and beneath me, an• as one was jumping, with insecure foot• noyed past consolation that it was not ing, was trying. The higher we rose the safe to stop anywhere long enough to pull Arctic Mountaineering by a Woman 77

out my camera. It was the most wonder• from a chasm into which he had been let fully fantastic and beautiful sight I had down, " I could chop a trail. " At this hour ever seen and I wished it to be indelibly to do so would be to risk that the whole impressed on my memory. I wanted time threatening mass would collapse, or at to drink in the marvellous scenes of this least that walls or blocks would fall on us.

One of the ten-foot crevasses on McClellan Glacier. Looking down Kennecott Glacier.

frozen inferno, but time there was not. In Switzerland they do not go on such To linger was not safe at this hour. If glaciers, but the only concern of these men we could not get up quickly we must get was for me. At times they insisted on ashore or go down. Thrilling beyond my remaining above some forty-foot wall words was it to be in such places. Each under which they were going to have a time that I had given up all hope and was look. They returned to take me through wondering how my men could hope to find a labyrinth of crevasses into which they a way up some hopeless place, from above had been. On all fours and quickly must or below or around a corner would come I go, for the blocks that choked these bot• Mr. Barrett's cheery voice, " I think I can tomless abysses and over which we were make it, Mac." But after an hour even he climbing had sharp edges and corners and began to give up hope. " If only I had an had no snow coating. They must have hour of freezing now," he lamented finally fallen very lately, and more might fall to- 78 Arctic Mountaineering by a Woman day. We could find no way to advance, the loose stones sliding. There were no no way "ashore" even, to the ridge which sure holds. Climbing was difficult, espe• offered our last hope, and to gain it we cially with packs and tent-poles to impede must now descend a thousand feet from us. The rocks hurt the dogs' feet. Nig the 7,500-foot level that we had reached. tried to cross an ice slide, slipped, fell

Just over the gravel from worse ice.

It was 10.30 when we turned down and fifty feet, and struck with a thud, yet up two hours later when we had climbed to he scrambled, and the next day tried it the ridge. Here at last we were safe from again. Two of the men had to cut their avalanches, safe from crevasses, but a new packs in half, and preferred the "grub" series of difficulties was to begin. The to the bedding. At 7 we had barely ridge offered the last hope for the ascent reached the snow saddle. We could not of the mountain. The crumbling lime• cross it without too great risk. To climb stone made the dogs slide and slip as much seven hundred feet perpendicularly down as we did, for their packs pulled them onto the glacier and up the ridge again back. We roped them. Then we took beyond it would therefore be necessary on their packs off, "and then we was the the morrow. Here we must sleep, on the dogs," as Mr. Felterolf put it. At times bowlders, with no room for a tent and two we had to wait for each other, because of men without bedding. We had to melt ice Arctic Mountaineering by a Woman 79

for water, and choose between drinking it the weather. Most of the hard work of or using it for coffee. We could not spare the ascent was over. With good weather alcohol enough for more. The aneroid we could be sure of reaching the top in showed 8,700 feet. Already, at 8,000 feet, two more days, for we could see our route we had had superb views of the whole now all the way and had just enough food

Leaving 8,700 feet, highest point reached. Men and dog at the left of the picture. beautiful mass of Mount Logan, 19,000 and fuel left to go to the top and back on feet high, and beyond it of Mount Saint short rations. Working as hard as possi• Elias, 18,100 feet, both nearly one hun• ble, with days eighteen hours long, it had dred and fifty miles away, the latter close still taken nine days to reach the moun• to the sea. To reach 8,700 feet on a peak tain and to find a safe way up it. A bliz• only 360 feet higher than Mt. Blanc had zard now would be fatal to success, for cost me as much time and effort as to after weathering it there would not re• climb Mt. Blanc, two high snow passes, main enough rations with which to com• three of the less difficult and three of the plete the ascent. Goats, ptarmigan, and most difficult of the famous Aiguilles at timber were two days below us now. Chamonix the summer before. At 4.30 A. M. we wakened in a snow- The night was not cold for that alti• storm. The wind had changed. The tude. The men even feared a change in men recognized the signs of a three-day Over a glacial stream on a bridge built of rocks. storm. We waited a while to be sure. Mr. If when the way up Mount Blackburn McClellan and Mr. Barrett climbed down had been found, more supplies had been to the glacier below and returned with a attainable, we should have reached the verdict of "perfectly feasible," although to summit, but mountaineering in Alaska is me it looked nearly as hopeless and broken mountaineering in the Arctic. In moun• as its lower section had proved to be the tain climbing, perhaps more than in any day before. The clouds lifted, shifted, then other sport, we appreciate each difficult settled. Silently, at 10.30 we turned down point gained in proportion to what its at• from what they had termed Keen Ridge. tainment has cost us. In difficulties, in Unknown tome, Mr. Felterolf had scratched thrilling experiences, in a view of the beau• my name on a rock at our highest point. tiful ice world on a new scale, in the re• "You never will know quite how hard it ward of a new vision of life, Alaskan was for me to turn back," writes my leader. mountaineering may take first rank with "It's the first journey I ever started on that the high peaks of the Himalayas. The I didn't get to the end of," writes Mr. Bar• reason that my leader had consented to go rett, "and, believe me, if ever I start for was that if I wished to undertake so big a the top of Mount Blackburn again. I'll task, he wished to help me. Such is the get there, and I bet you will too." spirit of Alaska.

NOTE.—Miss Keen's second attempt to climb Mount Blackburn has been successful. She left Cordova, Alaska, on April 18. this spring, with six men to attack the mountain again from the south-east. She telegraphed on May 25, from Kennecott, Alaska: After thirteen days' snow-storm, spent in caves, made the summit of Mount Black• burn on May 19." Drawn by Allen True.

A safe and sane Fourth of July. 80-A

SIX SONS OF OSSIAN

A STORY OF THE NORTH COUNTRY

By Mary Synon

ILLUSTRATION BY N. C. WYETH

WHEN six men dwell together Scotch. "What's a shame?" came Dun• for three years in a North can's thin voice. "It's an outrage that Country residency they you get the Kapuskasing," Randall broke either hate each other with in, "when Steve's whipped that section infinite scorn or they cher• into shape. That residency was the tough• ish a comradeship that en• est job on the whole grade — and you know dures through time and circumstance. why — and Steve's made it the best piece Kenyon and O'Hara, Randall and Fergu• of work. If you didn't keep on smug• son, Steve MacDonald and little Jean gling your vile whiskey to his section men, Feroux had come through misunderstand• he'd have had his chance to prove up. ings and separations, bickerings and com• Haven't you any honor, Duncan? If you bats, into the friendships that made Resi• were a man, instead of a little, intriguing dency Number Eight famous along the whipper-snapper, you'd never even have Transcontinental Right-of-Way from Que• applied for a place that belongs by every bec to Winnipeg. So glittering were the moral right to another man, to say noth• bands of steel that bound their compan• ing of breaking laws just so that you could ionship that when Duncan of Number Ten discredit him with the chief." received the appointment to the chieftain• "Well, I have the place now," Duncan ship of the Kapuskasing River residency snarled, "and what are you going to do the builders of the railroad through the about it? " Bush waited the wrath of the men of Eight. The chuckle of the operator came over It came. For Steve MacDonald had won the wire. Randall sensed the tension his right to the coveted post by hard work, that held nineteen silent men to their in• and Duncan had won the post because his struments on the string from Groundhog father was in the Dominion Parliament. to the Missinaibi. Number Eight was on Steve MacDonald was at the Kapuska• trial for courage. "I'll show you what sing residency when the news of Dun• we'll do," he yelled. can's appointment was telephoned out to " Play the broom, me bonnie lad," Scotty the latter from the Groundhog tower sta• called encouragingly as Randall banged tion. The ringing of the telephone bell by up the receiver. the Groundhog operator sounded in twen• That day there assembled a council of ty-one offices along the construction track war in the dining shack of Number Eight. and brought every man within ear-shot of Randall flung his news at the other four the jingle to the entertainment the eaves• as they came in from the Right-of-Way. dropping promised. Randall, tapping the Through their dinner hour the five men wire with nineteen other men, according to heaped abuse on Duncan, and on Duncan's the custom of Bush telephoning, shouted father, and on the men of authority whom his indignation at the Groundhog operator Duncan's father knew. Even Kenyon for• as soon as that official finished his reading of sook his Nestorian caution in his anger at Duncan's telegram to twenty other listen• the wrong done to Steve MacDonald. ing ears. "Steve has really earned that place," Scotty, the operator, hastily disclaimed he drawled with decision. "If Duncan's any personal responsibility for the choice crowd had played fair, he'd have had it, of Duncan. " Bannister doesn't know, but too. It's not right that Duncan should it's joost a shame," he condoled in broad be given the Kapuskasing." 81 82 Six Sons of Ossian

"And Duncan of all the fellows in the "What'11 we do to Duncan?" Randall service!" Randall pounded on the table demanded. in emphasis of his disgust with the gov• Four of them turned to O'Hara. He ernment's choice. "Why, there isn't a shrugged his shoulders. " Well, what can man on the grade who doesn't know Dun• I do?" he asked petulantly without tak• can for what he is, the 'soldier-smuggler' ing his pipe from his mouth. of the line." Donald Ferguson frowned. "Even if " And the kind of whiskey he smuggles," you don't like Steve as well as the rest of groaned Ferguson. us do," he said, "you know he's one of us, " I think it's ridiculous for the govern• and we're going to stand by him. When ment to make a law prohibiting the sale of any fellow strikes one of the men of Eight, whiskey along the Right-of-Way," Jean he fights us all." Feroux announced, "if men who have vio• "Right-O!" said Kenyon. Randall and lated that law ever since they came to the Feroux nodded solemnly. Bush are to be made resident engineers." "Besides," Ferguson continued, push• "Well, the government doesn't know ing back his chair from the table and what Duncan's doing." Ferguson's de• reaching the door-way with one stride, clared political opinions always forced " this is the time for all of us to prove up." him into defence of the administration. He turned to O'Hara directly. "Steve's " If Duncan had played fair with Steve," losing more than the residency with this," Kenyon said with judicial consideration, he said, "and you know it." With the "I think that no one of us would think cryptic utterance ringing behind him he it his business to object to the ' soldier- stepped out of the shack to the brilliant smuggling,' although it is law-breaking. sunshine of the northern May. But we all know that Duncan was one of O'Hara stared after him consideringly. the men who made that section a disgrace Then he laughed. Kenyon and Randall to the division; and we all know that ever and Jean Feroux watched him disapprov• since Steve went out to the Kapuskasing, ingly. "Having fired the shot, he de• Duncan has been smuggling case after parted," he announced. "Does any one case out to the section, not as much for of ye know what he meant?" the money he makes as for the trouble No one of them answered. O'Hara set it gives the man in charge. Isn't that down his pipe, stretched himself, and right, Brian?" He turned to O'Hara for arose. "I won't be back to supper," he counsel. said. "I've an engagement in Ground• "I know nothing about it," O'Hara hog." At the door of the shack he paused, answered curtly. peering down the path toward the bridge Kenyon bit his lip at the rebuff. "And over the Frederick House River. "Our the worst of it is," he continued, " that the old friend Fraser, the meanest man who Kapuskasing is a permanent residency." ever worked on a railroad, has just de• "That's why Duncan has it." said scended from the steel train. He's com• Donald Ferguson. ing to crow over us. I think I'll stay." "And Steve wanted it so," lamented He went back to his place at the table and Jean Feroux. had resumed his pipe when a tall, sandy- "Steve thought that if he'd get the haired man in shabby khaki filled the Kapuskasing place, he'd-— " Donald Fer• door-way. " Girding for the war-path? " guson halted his words with a sudden asked the stranger. glance at O'Hara. The Irishman had "Waiting to welcome ye," said O'Hara spoken only in answer to Kenyon's di• smoothly. rect question. Usually the quickest of "Have dinner with us," Kenyon gave them to speech, he had been strangely si• imitation, but Fraser declined". "Had lent through the excited conference. Now my dinner with the trainmen." His ex• he scowled at Ferguson. "He'd what?" planations snapped jerkily. "Just ran in he asked sharply. "I mean, he thought to take your congratulations on to Dun• he'd like to stay up here in the Bush can," he taunted. "Lucky chap, Dun• when the road's finished, " Ferguson ended can." lamely. "Very," said Kenyon dryly. Six Sons of Ossian 83

" Surprised MacDonald failed. Thought "We'll not," promised Randall, follow• he was doing wonders." ing him. "He did well," Kenyon said. Feroux and Randall went up to the "Front thought otherwise." grade with Fraser. " He'd steal the blue• "We know he did well," said Randall. prints if they didn't watch him," Kenyon "Too bad you're not running all of the said. He cleared his throat nervously be• National Transcontinental," Fraser ob• fore he spoke directly to O'Hara. "Fra• served. ser coached Duncan to ask for that place," "It is unfortunate," said Jean Feroux. he assured him. "In this instance we could right an in• "Our enemies have combined against justice." us," said O'Hara in a tone that mocked "By the way," said Fraser, " I hear one the words. of you threatened Duncan over the wire "Are you going to join them? " Kenyon this morning. He's upset a bit, I fancy, tried to make his voice as unemotional as for he telegraphed his father to have the the other man's. "Going to desert?" sergeant of provincial police instructed to "Is there any desertion about it?" keep an eye on Number Eight." " Yes, there is," said Kenyon decidedly. "He did!" Five voices chorused the " You'd be the first to see it if it concerned exclamation in varying degrees of surprise any other man. Why don't you help and anger. Steve? You've used your wit and clever• "Oh, he's wise," said Fraser. "He ness for every other man you've half-way knows the reputation of the Six Sons of liked on the Transcontinental. Why Ossian." won't you use it for him?" "He'll know it better before we're "How can I do that in honesty to my• through with him," said Randall. self?" " I told him when he spoke of the place," "What's Steve done to you, other than Fraser continued, watching O'Hara nar• loving Molly Law before you did?" rowly, " that if the six of you held to• "But he didn't!" O'Hara banged his gether he might as well resign from the fist on the table. " He doesn't even now. service before he even asked for the Ka• Steve never said anything or did anything puskasing residency. But he suggested to make Molly believe he cared for her. the possibility of a break in your ranks." 'Twas when he was away that I started "What does he think could cause it?" going to see her. 'Twas loyalty to Steve demanded Jean Feroux. that took me. I was sorry for her and I "Hard to say." Fraser scratched his was hoping all the time that Steve'd come head reflectively. "Association hasn't and back and marry her. And Steve came ambition hasn't. You're that thick now back and he didn't marry her. There that a knife couldn't come between any were weeks and weeks when he never went two of you. But a woman may." near her. And just to make her feel " Rot!" Kenyon and Feroux and Ran• that the men of Eight hadn't altogether dall yelled the word at their guest. But forgotten her, I fell into the habit of go• O'Hara kept his mouth closed tightly over ing to see her oftener. I saw how she his pipe. Fraser's eyes never left him. struggled to make a comfortable home up The unappeased hatred of three years— here in a Bush shack for that good-for- his feud with O'Hara began the day they nothing old father of hers and I began to met — dripped into his speech. "I'm think of what home might be like. I sorry MacDonald's lost the place," he hadn't had a home since I left Connemara. said. "I suppose he counted on it so "I knew that some day we'd break up that he could marry Molly Law. That's this band of the six of us," he went on. why he came back to the Bush, isn't it?" He was not the O'Hara of whimsical "That is MacDonald's own affair," humor Kenyon had long known, and the Kenyon told him. chief of the residency listened to him with "Oh, no offence," said Fraser easily, al• the wonder he would have given a stranger though he rose to go. "Fun on the T. telling him an impassioned tale. "Ye'll C. R. if you take up the cudgels for Steve. be marrying soon, Ken, and settling here. Don't forget the sergeant." And Jean'11 be going to the west and Ran'11 84 Six Sons of Ossian drift with him. Don't go back home. "And we'll be glad to see ye," O'Hara He's not made for the wandering. And assured him impulsively. Steve — well, it seemed to me that Steve " I knew you would," said Steve. There would be going up and down the world, re• was a vibrant chord in the hurt courage of joicing and revelling, laughing that great his voice that echoed in the other man's joyous laugh of his, taking the best and consciousness all the time he was pump• never knowing it. And I saw meself ing the hand-car toward Groundhog and driven like a leaf before every wind of ad• Molly Law. The golden evening of the venture till one day I crumbled into dust Bush seemed flooded with memories of with no one to care, no one to grieve. And those glorious times when he and Steve thinking of it all, I grew weary of the way MacDonald had gone together to the lit• I'd lived. And Molly came to mean all tle town that had been the scene of their the things I'd missed, home and happi• most joyous revels. ness and love. And just when she was He could not put the happier memories beginning to forget Steve MacDonald, he of Steve from his mind even when he woke up to the fact that some one else came to the little shack on the other side appreciated her, and he's selfish enough of Groundhog where Molly Law held her to want to be first with her. And now courts. The girl welcomed him with a it's come to this: If Steve gets the Ka• little restraint. Through the supper to puskasing, he gets Molly. For he'll tell which she had invited him she spoke her that he had nothing to offer her before seldom, leaving the conversation to her and she'll forget the long months he gave father's garrulous gabbling of youthful no thought to her. That's the woman of exploits and her guest's polite inquiries. it. But if he doesn't get it, he'll say noth• After supper was over and she had cleared ing, and after a time she'll think kindly the dishes from the table she came into of me again. And now ye're asking me the parlor and without request played the to help Steve MacDonald!" His laugh piano fervently in butchery of a Cham¬ came harsh. inade reverie. Her father, impatient of "It's for yourself that I'm asking it," the interruption to his tales, went out. Kenyon said. "You don't need to have O'Hara. sitting in the shadow, watched me tell you that you and I are such the gleam of the girl's bright hair under friends as Steve and I could never be. the red shaded lamp. His eyes shone And that's why I want you to work as with the content of the home feeling the we're doing, shoulder to shoulder for little shack always gave him. Through Steve. Don't take your happiness over the open window rushed the fragrance of the faith of the man who's been our com• the May time buds of the balsams. Dark• rade." He paused in sudden conscious• ness had not quite come and the silver of ness of the unwonted sentiment in his a northern twilight hung over the Bush to words. the westward. It was a time for dreams O'Hara considered the problem a mo• of young love, and Brian O'Hara, who ment. " 'Tis all between the three of us," had loved many women in many ways he said, "Steve and Molly and meself." and who knew that Molly Law was the " In the end," said Kenyon, "it will be woman he loved so well that he regretted up to you." all the others, drifted into them as the The decision pressed closer to O'Hara reverie trickled on to an end. late that afternoon when he answered the He had come to the time of dreaming, ringing of the telephone bell in the office when dreams slip into words as impalpably just before he went to Groundhog. The as dusk drifts into moonlight. "Molly, call came from Steve MacDonald at Num• dear," he began. ber Eleven, and even over the wire the Molly Law turned on the piano-stool. weariness and discouragement in his young Her eager girlishness seemed glazed with voice struck cold on O'Hara's sensitized an anxiety so visible that O'Hara won• ear. "That you, Brian?" said the boy. dered if she could have heard him. Then, "I'm ordered-in, you know. I'm finish• "Did Duncan get Number Eleven?" she ing my reports to-night. I'll be home asked. to-morrow." " Yes," O'Hara answered her. Six Sons of Ossian 85

Did Fraser help him get it?" plunge. " Did ye know that Steve comes "I don't know." to-morrow?" he asked her. " Fraser doesn't like you, does he? " she The quick color rushed to Molly Law's continued the examination. cheeks, but her voice was quiet as his own "As well as we like him," the guest ad• when she parried, "I'm sorry that Steve mitted. didn't make the grade. But you needn't "Why does he call you the Six Sons of tell him so." Ossian? " " I'm thinking, "said O'Hara," that he's "To show off his book-learning," said the one to be told." O'Hara. "Oh, well, if you want to," she said, "Well, I have none." Her laugh ac• and went back to her Chaminade with cented her nervousness of questioning. staccato emphasis. She had hardly come "You might tell me what he means." to the final bars when O'Hara rose to go. O'Hara grinned. The tender light "I've work to do," he told her. "What had gone from his gray eyes with Molly is it?" she asked, made curious by the Law's query of the Kapuskasing appoint• earnestness of his tone. " My duty to the ment, but a flash of humor went across boys," he answered. them as he said, " Fraser means that we're "It sounds like a pledge," said Molly an unregenerate crew of pirates, maraud• Law. ers, and highwaymen, and that he'd right "I'm not sure that it's not,"said O'Hara. any one of us to the finish if he weren't The misty white moonlight of the afraid of the others. Y'see, Fraser knows North Country transfigured the Bush as enough of his poetry and enough of us to he stepped out of the shack. The little remember that the Sons of Ossian were twinkling lights of Groundhog lay under the six in love and war akin." it with softened radiance. From the "I never saw anything like the way Widow's hotel floated the sound of a vio• you boys at Eight have held together," lin, played upon by some boy on his way Molly Law went on. " Do you remember to the camps who was sending out his the first winter I was here when the six of soul speech to the mystic loveliness of you always came together to all the dances? the night. Listening to it, Brian O'Hara That was the year you raided Fraser's paused. From melody to melody the residency, wasn't it? And Steve and Don strains of the music drifted, coming to the and Jean wouldn't go home for Christmas man who heard them across the eerie because the rest of you had to stay?" space of the clearing as if they were in• "I remember," said O'Hara. spired for the accompaniment of his mood. "And the time Steve threw the Chi• All the loneliness he had known came back nese cook in the river when he saw him with the sound of those notes of simple drawing the knife on you, and then you ballads. All the longing that had driven had to fish him out for fear that China• him from continent to continent, seeking man would just drown himself for spite?" something that he could never define but She rambled on through reminiscence that he came so close to finding in the red without heeding O'Hara's curt interjec• glow of Molly Law's lamp, cried to him tions, without seeing the shadows that in those poignant reverberations. Under lingered in his eyes. For every remem• the spell of moonlight and music he brance revealed the closeness of the bond turned back to where the square of the between the men of Eight and tightened window still revealed the rosy glow. A that bond into a pressure that demanded bar, more familiar than those that had that he help Steve MacDonald to win the gone before it, fell on his listening and he place back from Duncan. Quite suddenly murmured the words of a song that many he understood that Molly Law was talk• a man of his people had sung before him, ing of the comradeship of the six because she wanted to talk of MacDonald and " For there's nothing half so sweet in life As love's young dream." couldn't speak of him directly. He took a long breath, looking around the room Brian O'Hara had come out of the shack with the gaze a swimmer into strong without telling Molly Law of the love he waters gives the shore before he takes the held for her. The knowledge that she 86. Six Sons of Ossian would care for Steve MacDonald, should construction reports, scanning them care• he come back to her, had frozen the fully, and tossing them aside afterward thought in his heart and resolved his de• with the impatience of a person in au• cision to wait his pleadings till he and thority. O'Hara chuckled. The man at Steve should be on equal terms. But the desk whirled toward him with bel• with the magic of the night, when the ligerent abruptness. lulled winds brought their message of love "I knew I'd find ye here," said O'Hara and of loving that transcended all other calmly. His host laughed. "There's thought, there came to him rebellion not another man on the Transcontinental against the chains he was forging. He who'd have the courage to interrupt me turned back toward the shack. "Why when I'm trying to straighten this tangle," not?" he asked himself. he said. "They didn't know ye in the With the question came the answer, no west," O'Hara said, seating himself on theory now, but a memory of a time when the only other chair in the tower room. Kenyon had taken his word in a matter " Except when I meet ye on an inspection of work. " I'll believe in you, Brian," he tour where ye have ' Chief Engineer' pla• had said, "till you testify against your• carded in the front of your engine, I can self — and a little after that." The joy never think of ye in any way but Neddie of that moment came warmly over him Bannister." again, only to grow cold with quick con• "What's the scrape now?" Bannister trast. And after it rushed other mem• inquired. ories he would gladly have driven out, not "I'm in none — yet," said O'Hara. of MacDonald and of Ferguson, but of Bannister went back to the reports, Randall's friendship, of Jean Feroux's scowling over them fiercely while O'Hara idealistic devotion, of Kenyon's faith in watched him in silence. For a long time him. Elusive and embracing as the there was no sound, except the occasional moonbeams, they flooded his brain, strug• scratching of a pen over heavy paper. gling with the shadows of his desires. Then Bannister, raising his eyes from his There, in a white world of mist, while the work, smiled at his guest. "Say it," he music welled from pensive sadness to tri• told him. umphant assertiveness, he stood alone, "I don't know how to begin," O'Hara fighting his battle between love for a girl said earnestly. " Y'know, Ned, don't ye, and a standard of honor in the friendship that I was never one to spy or tattle on of men. me fellow workers in the vineyard of the The music, vibrant with the thrill of railroad building? " youth in a land that is young, ended in "There have been times enough when I that rising note that forever questions the wished you would," Bannister encouraged one who hears. Just as it died the lighted him. square of the window of Molly Law's shack "Then let me say with the Walrus that went into soft darkness. Brian O'Hara the time has come." He drew his chair sighed. " Ye may be right, Tom Moore," closer to the Chief's. "In the long run," he he admitted, "but just to prove that ye're asked, "isn't it yourself who's responsible not, I'm going to do the meanest thing for the entire conduct of this division?" I ever did in all the bad days of me life." Bannister nodded, watching O'Hara with He did not look behind him as he unconcealed amusement. "'Tis not that walked swiftly past the lower lights of I'm puzzled over the way to say this to Groundhog, hastening to the tower where ye," the Irishman continued, "but I'm Scotty held sway over the dispatch board doing something I don't like to do be• to the westward residencies. From the cause there's no other way of righting a windows above bright beams of light wrong. I'm informing on Duncan, that's streamed, but the door was locked. what I'm doing, and I'm doing it not for O'Hara tried the window beside it, found the good of the service, nor because the it yielding to his touch, opened it noise• blame might come on ye some time, but lessly, and crept up the stairs. just because I want Steve MacDonald to At Scotty's desk a man, not the dis• go back to the Kapuskasing. Do y' know, patcher, was seated. He was reading Ned, why Steve MacDonald had the Six Sons of Ossian 87 divvle to pay with the section men out one of the few men left in his circle of there? 'Twas because every mother's friendship out of a breezier time of life. son of them was soaked in the bad whiskey "I'll do something," he promised. "I Duncan had been smuggling in to them. think I'll give all of you a surprise." 'Tis safe to say that every 'bad soldier' The sense of jubilation that came to ye'll find along the grade for those ten him with Bannister's words was all gone miles came in a case that was addressed before he had set his hand-car on the to Duncan." tracks. As he sped through the dark• "Not surprising," was Bannister's com• ness of the Bush — for the moon had gone ment. "Boys who know their fathers down and a colder breeze had dispelled have influence are the most demoralizing the mists — he chilled in the dreariness of element in the service." sacrifice. Self-disgust at his report to "If 'twere just deviltry, I'd condone Bannister of Duncan's misdeeds alter• it," O'Hara went on, "but, sure, I know nated with faint hope that Steve would 'tis Fraser's meanness back of it. I don't profit by his act. He knew that if Ban• need to be told that Fraser and Duncan nister made inquiry he would find the thought out the plan to discredit Steve's truth of his story, and that finding it the work at Eleven, knowing ye so well that Chief would make every effort to right the they were sure ye'd fight for the keeping injustice. And then MacDonald would of the man who could hold down that sec• be back at Eleven. After that — but Brian tion after the discreditable pass Duncan's O'Hara refused to go beyond that point of own crowd brought it to. Wasn't it be• thought. He had crossed Jean Feroux's cause of the 'soldier-smuggling' that ye bridge over the Frederick House when he didn't fight for Steve ? " saw that the only light in the shacks came " It was," said Bannister. The amuse• from the office where Kenyon would be at ment had flickered out of his eyes and his work. O'Hara stopped before it, speaking jaw had set into its more characteristic to Kenyon through the open window. hard lines. O'Hara saw the signs of the "I've started a little conspiracy against sense of justice he had been trying to Duncan," he informed him. reach. "And if ye'd find proof that what Kenyon came to the door. "You're I'm telling ye is true," he demanded, the real diamond, Brian," he said fer• "wouldn't ye defy Duncan's influence vently. long enough to send him out of the ser• "I'm not," dissented O'Hara with vice?" anger. "But d'ye think I'd let any two "Where's the proof?" demanded Ban• men from beyond the Firth of Clyde nister. think they can outwit me?" "'Tis yours for the asking," O'Hara He refused to tell Kenyon what he had told him. "The sergeant of police has it. done, assuring him that he'd know soon The Groundhog agent has it in his bills enough if anything came of it. With the of lading. Every section man on Eleven others he was silent, but when Steve Mac• can be made to tell you that he's been Donald came back to Eight the next day buying whiskey from Duncan. 'Tis the he greeted him with more than usual cord• joke of the line that the son of one of the iality. As soon as he found him alone men who made the prohibition law is the he gave him Molly Law's message. Steve leading smuggler of the North." laughed uncertainly. The big fellow had "Why didn't you tell me this before a way of laughing when he was glad and Duncan was appointed?" Bannister when he was sad; but a world of emotion asked. swung between the two, and O'Hara could "I wouldn't be telling ye at all," said not fail to recognize that this was a laugh O'Hara, "if something hadn't made me of discouraged weariness. "Tell her see that I'd never be able to shake hands when you see her that I'm grateful for the with meself again if I didn't show ye the sympathy," said Steve. truth now. Will ye do something about "Tell her yourself," said O'Hara. "I it, Ned?" don't know when I'll see her again." Some of the old gleam of fun had come He had not seen her a week afterward back to Bannister's eyes. O'Hara was when he met Bannister on the grade. 88 Six Sons of Ossian

"You were right, Brian," the Chief told O'Hara to take charge of Number Eleven. him. "I've all the necessary evidence in Permanent appointment follows. Ban• that case and I've forwarded it down to nister. " head-quarters with a recommendation." Kenyon hung up the receiver without "Then all we need do is wait for the comment. He turned to the five who fireworks? " were watching him with aroused curi• "That's all," said Bannister. "The osity. "Bannister orders O'Hara to evidence is conclusive. But it doesn't Eleven," he said tensely. implicate Fraser." Steve MacDonald went white. Then "Of course not," said O'Hara. "Fra¬ he laughed foolishly. Ferguson clenched ser's the craftier of the two." He waved his fists. Randall tried to whistle. Jean aside Bannister's thanks to him for the in• Feroux drew breath sharply. They all formation that had led to the Chief's dis• looked at O'Hara, all but Kenyon, who covery of the law-breaking on his work. went back to the desk where he had been "I'm ashamed of that," he said, "and I at work. O'Hara arose as if to stand sen• feel that some day I'll pay the price for tence. the doing of it." "Where's Bannister?" he asked. Bannister laughed at him and he went "Groundhog," said Randall. O'Hara back to the residency with a lighter heart stared at him as if he had not heard. "I than he had felt since the day Steve Mac• knew him in Calgary," he said. Then he. Donald had been superseded at Eleven. left them. To Kenyon and Feroux he confided that No word went after him. The little Bannister was making an investigation clock on Kenyon's desk threw its ticking and that the results of it might be made against the silence. Down the grade evident at anytime. " Fraser'll be along," rushed the shriek of an engine whistle, he prophesied, "before the lightning trumpeting the coming of the train from strikes. But let none of ye say anything the west on its way to Groundhog. Steve to MacDonald of the fact that Bannister MacDonald rose wearily, stumbling across told me of this." the bare floor in his heavy boots till he Fraser did not come, but the lightning reached the door. Then just as wearily struck Eight less than a week from the he went up the path to the grade. day O'Hara had talked with the Chief. Jean Feroux was the one to speak. "I Scotty telephoned in haste to the Fred• would never have believed," he said bit• erick House River residency. All of the terly, "that Brian O'Hara would be trai• men but MacDonald were in the office tor to any one of us." when Randall answered the summoning The silence of the others judged O'Hara. bell. "Duncan's fired," the dispatcher After a time that seemed hours to Ken• told Randall and all the other listeners yon, although the little clock counted but out to the Missinaibi. "Head-quarters minutes, Ferguson and Randall and Jean sustains Bannister's suspension. And, Feroux went out while the train from the Randall, tell O'Hara that there's a young west grew vibrant on the rails. Kenyon lady in Groundhog who was asking for waited till he saw them going, Indian file, news of him to-day. He'll know who. on the path MacDonald had taken. Then And, Randall, I've a special message for he crossed to the shack that he had shared Kenyon. Bannister's sending it from for three years with Brian O'Hara. here." O'Hara was packing. He had set his Kenyon took the receiver from Randall trunk in the middle of the floor and was as Steve MacDonald entered the office. throwing his possessions into it with fine " Duncan's fired," they cried to him, joy• abandon of care. The while he flung his fully watching the glow spread over his scanty toll of many lands into the worn clean cut face. O'Hara held out his hand box he crooned an old song. He did not to the boy. " I am glad," he said. "Keep cease from it when Kenyon came in and still, I can't hear," Kenyon ordered them. seated himself on his cot. Only when he In the silence that followed Scotty's voice was nearly done his task did he pause to burred on, "Are you there? Here it is: speak. "Ye'll send this after me?" he Kenyon, Number Eight — Send Brian asked of Kenyon. Drawn by N. C. Wyeth.

There, in a white world of mist, ... he stood alone, fighting his battle between love for a girl and a standard of honor in the friendship of men. — Page 86. 90 Six Sons of Ossian

"Oh, yes," said Kenyon scornfully. to a sudden husky quaver. "Cheer up, "You've plenty of time," he assured him. Ken," he tried to laugh. " 'Tis but a lit• "The train to the Kapuskasing doesn't tle bit of an auld world and I won't be far leave till to-morrow." across it." O'Hara was tying a tag on the trunk It was Brian O'Hara's farewell to Resi• handle. Kenyon looked at it to keep his dency Number Eight. eyes from meeting the other man's. He Only once again did the Six Sons of had read only half of it when he voiced Ossian come together. On the next his amazement. "Brian." he cried, morning, ten minutes before the southern "you're not going there?" For the tag express from Groundhog was due to leave, was addressed: a hand-car pounded furiously past Scotty's tower, almost telescoping the last car of BRIAN O'HARA. the train as it swung around the curve The Bund, Shanghai. China, and rocked up to the platform. Five via Vancouver. men sprang from it, seeking O'Hara. Hold till sent for. They found him in the dim day coach. " Why not? " asked O'Hara. " 'Tis the " Did you think we'd let you go with• only country I've never seen the inside of, out a hand shake?" demanded Randall and I won't be happy till I do. ' Free to unsteadily. He and Ferguson and Jean love, free to hope, and free to wander,'" Feroux shook their comrade's hand has• he quoted. "Sure, the wandering's the tily, grippingly. "I want to thank you only thing worth while in all the wide for the job — and all." said Steve Mac• world, Ken, ye auld fool, though 'tis Donald when his hand met O'Hara's. yourself who's giving it up." "Bannister telephoned last night after A sudden doubt assailed Kenyon. you saw him." Kenyon came last. "I "Then, after all," he asked, "you don't want to thank you, Brian," he said, "for love Molly as well as the open road?" the faith you've given us in each other An ink-well in O'Hara's hand fell noisily and in ourselves." to the floor. "I wish to God I didn't." "Go to the divvle!" said O'Hara. he said. They were trying to sing, " For he's a The whistle of the train on the grade jolly good fellow!" when Fraser's face ap• above the shack sounded groaningly near. peared at one of the car windows. " If ye O'Hara tried to bang down the trunk believe me your friend," said O'Hara. "I cover. "Do it any time when I'm gone. bequeath to ye Fraser's punishment." Ken," he said, looking at his watch. "It He nodded to him gayly. "Where are has a way of finding me wherever I go. you going? " Fraser called. " To China," Give me the kit-pack." He stuffed O'Hara told him. "The Viceroy's sent clothes into the khaki bag hastily. "I'll for me genius to aid him." catch the train at the siding," he said. "Who gets the Kapuskasing?" "I'll say good-by to no one. I'll see "MacDonald," live of them told him, Bannister to-night. 'Twas for the sake routing him to flight. of the auld days in Calgary he gave me On the hand-car. when the train to the the place. Now for the sake of the same southward noisily pulled away, Kenyon he'll give it back to MacDonald or me and Randall and Ferguson, Steve Mac• name's not O'Hara." The grinding of Donald and little Jean Feroux essayed a brakes warned him. "I'll write ye," he shout that died in their throats. Brian said, flinging his kit-pack upon his back. O'Hara was standing on the platform of the last coach, gazing past them to the "With me bundle on me shoulder. clearing of the Right-of-Way. They Faith, there's no one could be bolder," thought he was bidding good-by to the he sang. old days of his joyous reign along the rail• He was singing as he took his way to the road to the westward. But his gaze went siding. Once, at the beginning of the farther. For the west-going road was path through the sun-flecked greenness of bright and beyond the Pacific lay untold the jack-pines, he looked back at the man miles of railroad Rights-of-Way. And who stood watching him. His song fell O'Hara was young, and it was to that Dragonflies 91 world that he was going, free to love, free swung around the bend, speeding its way to hope and free to wander. Even as the to the Height of Land, Brian O'Hara saw train passed the shack on the other side of five men on a hand-car, growing pigmies in Groundhog, where a bright-haired girl the widening distance, waving tiny specks stood framed in the logs of the doorway, of white to him as he went out of the he did not look that way. But as the car North Country.

DRAGONFLIES

By Madison Cawein

You, who put off the water-worm, to rise, Reborn, with wings; who change, without ado, Your larval bodies to invade the skies, What Merlin magic disenchanted you, And made you beautiful for mortal eyes?

Shuttles of Summer, where the lilies sway Their languid leaves and sleepy pods and flowers, Weaving your colored threads into the day, Knitting with light the tapestry of hours, You come and go in needle-like array.

Now on a blade of grass or pod, as still As some thin shred of heaven, motionless, A point, an azure streak, you poise, until You seem a figment Summer would express But fails through utter indolence of will.

Then suddenly, as if the air had news, And flashed intelligence of fairy things, You vibrate into motion, instant hues, Searching the sunlight with diaphanous wings, Gathering together many filmy clues.

Clues, that the subject mind, in part, divines, Invisible but evidenced through these: The mote, that goldens down the sun's long lines, The web, that trails its silver to the breeze, And the slow musk that some dim flower untwines.

Could one but follow! and the threads unwind, Haply through them again he might perceive That land of Fairy, youth left far behind, Lost in the shadow world of Make Believe, Where Childhood dwells and Happiness of Mind.

And, undelayed, far, far beyond this field And quiet water, on the dream-road trail, Come on that realm of fancy, soul-concealed, Where he should find, as in the fairy tale, The cap through which all Elfland is revealed. Drawn by E. L. Blumenschein.

He filled his pipe and leaned back against the cypress tree behind him. He seemed to be listening, pride and modesty in his blurred black eyes. — Page 95. THE LITTLE COLONEL OF LOST HILL

By Barry Benefield

Illustration by E. L. Blumenschein

IT was my turn to go over and little dead-brown arms to betray what sixty- be Colonel Bascom's unseen odd years had done to them. I wished guardian while he fought then that his mind might suddenly realize over once again the only fight how many years had passed since the lost the "Arkansas Hellions" fight, and that it was irrevocably lost; for had lost forty years before. he was very weak, and I knew that since he The three boys in our family had assumed had begun trying to change the issue of that this annual duty in rotation. The colonel's June 14, 1864, he had fought more and more farm and my mother's touched, and when desperately on the quiet hill-side upon which Old Bailey brought the news that Marse he had always fallen just this side of the Jack's mind seemed about to enter his elev• hill's crest, defeated. The silent suffering enth mental eclipse I was ready to ride. of the succeeding fortnight, while he recov• Coming up through the dim-shaded ered from the imaginary wound, had in• woods-lot, I saw him sitting on the right end creased year after year, so that now it was of his long front gallery. The lifting of the next to impossible for my mother to bear it. oak latch at the yard gate did not bring him She had always taken charge of him and his hurrying to the front steps to say how much household until his mind came out of the an old bachelor appreciated a visit from his shadow. young friends of a Sunday afternoon, so I But the colonel did not look toward the knew that his mind had already entered the chair that held his every-day suit of rusty twenty-day shadow that had always been so blacks. Going on past that to the closet, sad. he took down his war things and put them Telling Old Bailey to find the two young• all on. He was breathing hard by the time er negroes on the backsliding sandy land he buckled on the silver spurs on which were farm and attend to the usual preparations engraved, "Never turn back." The huge, for the campaign leading up to Lost Hill, as curved sabre that he had picked up early in we had come to call it, I seated myself at the the war and carried ever afterward dragged left end of the gallery and watched the red the belt far down on his waist, and I knew sun slide down behind the blue-green corn• that this year he would have to use both field. hands to wield it. Old Bailey drawing water from the well Then he strode out into the hall, down with the creaking windlass woke me the the front steps and to the moss-green gate next morning. From my cot at the foot of where Old Bailey stood holding the horses the colonel's bed I saw him watering two and his mule. Mounting his decrepit little horses and a mule. Out beyond, a white, bay, the colonel fox-trotted easily down steaming mist hung over the cotton field. through the woods lot to the big gate, which With a new day's energy the chickens were a young negro held open. scratching at the grassless ground near the With Old Bailey and myself a few yards tottering, weather-bleached bee gums. The behind, the aged little planter who had be• cool, wettish breeze that came through the come a young soldier overnight cantered door from the other side of the house was down to the corner of his field, turned into heavy with the thick, sweet odor of flower• the blurred white road across the fenceless ing corn tassels. Shangi field, passed over the timbered hill The colonel sat up in bed, yawning. The and descended into the dim, damp bottom treacherous, buttonless night-shirt flared land by Big Cypress Bayou. Two miles open at the top to show a sunken, bone- brought us to Veal's Landing. The colonel riffled chest and slipped down over his poor trotted up to the tent that had been made 93 94 The Little Colonel of Lost Hill ready for him the night before on the hard, from the still, boding trees. Then the high ground overlooking the water. Dis• ground began rising slowly. A dogwood mounting, he walked in, laid his coat, hat or struggling hickory sapling mixed in with and belt on the cot and came out hurriedly. the oaks, which commenced shaking off "Well, what about breakfast?" he de• their noiseless moss. The boles of the trees manded fiercely of an imaginary figure that kept getting more and more slender and was Old Bailey at the age of eighteen. shapely, their heads rising higher and high• "He gits fearsomer an' fearsomer ever' er into the air. The sifted sun speckled the time he come down heah." mourned the vast black velvet of ancient leaf mold with real Old Bailey, shaking his head. " I bet spots of new gold. Ahead, wdiere the he gwine to 'sault me next yeah — ef he ground rose sharply, the pines sighed and live." whispered over the hill of the ten lost fights. Cosey, one of the younger negroes from My mother's orders were to smooth the the colonel's farm who had been watching way before the colonel, as well as to watch the wagon and tent through the night, al• over and provide for him. Old Bailey ready had a fire going, and presently the kept talking about how the lay of this land stooped and gray old negro carried to Marse in north-west Louisiana resembled that in Jack bacon, eggs, corn-bread and a pot of Virginia where the "Hellions" had suffered parched-corn coffee. their only defeat. He pointed out the way After breakfast the colonel came out in of the charge up the hill, and we labored up front of his tent and sat on a stump, smok• it, throwing aside stones, fallen limbs, and ing. From time to time he said "Yes" or patches of dry pine straw upon which the "No," frowning. colonel might slip. "De young orficers is makin' a call on Just this side of the hill's crest, about him." explained Old Bailey. "He was where the end had come on the Virginia hill, mighty pop'lar. Dey is funnin' wif him Old Bailey stopped to count the hacks on 'bout de name of his regiment, but he ain't the pine tree with which the colonel had al• studvin' dem young gent'men dis mawnin'. ways battled desperately and against which, He got somethin' on his mind." at the last, he had always fallen fighting. "I never named the regiment the Ar• There were something over a hundred res- kansas Hellions," the colonel stated after ined gashes, but the triumphant tree had awhile. "The enemy did that." grown larger as the colonel had grown "Oh, glory, look!" cried Old Bailey. weaker. The colonel had smiled. "Sometime he gwine to th'ow hisself About nine o'clock he mounted the spav• 'gainst dat pine so hahd he break his heart," ined little bay and moved off up into the said Old Bailey. "Marse Jack gittin' woods. That was for the officers' confer• mighty po'ly dese days." ence: and. knowing that he would sit there So I chopped down the hacked pine tree in the shade listening and talking to the grav close to the ground, cut its body into four- old oaks till nearly noon, I started away foot lengths that could be easily rolled aside, to inspect the hill of the ten lost fights. and cleared away the top. I cautioned Old Carrying an axe, and accompanied by Bailey that we must keep very near him the Old Bailey, I went down the Bayou a half a next morning when he got up to the site of mile and then walked eastward back to• the tree—if indeed he should be able to ward the fallow Shangi field, following the climb that far this year—so that if he still course of a small branch that went singing thought it was there we could catch him as insanely along to be swallowed up in the si• he fell toward it. lent big water beyond. The huge-footed, We got back to the camp in time to hear spindle-waisted cypress trees came in from the colonel speak to his regimental officers the Bavou's bank a hundred feet or so, giv• the invitation to the great dinner. ing wav then to the great, heavy-headed "Gentlemen, a certain black rascal with oaks that shaded the ground underneath no morals and a wonderful memory has got• black. ten together a goose, a guinea-hen, a turkey, For a quarter of a mile the land was low and a ham, he tells me, this being the twenty- and level, and all about here long, funereal fourth anniversary of my birth. Won't you wreaths of gray moss hung despondently help me with it?" The Little Colonel of Lost Hill 95

Then he walked out to the improvised to be one. Gentlemen, there is a certain table in the shade in front of the tent and pine hill that the general wants before mak• went through with that marvellous dinner ing any move. Ah, I see you know it. He with his dear familiar shadows. He would is uncertain whether there are one or two not have noticed it if none of the things he Yankee regiments up there. He wanted to had mentioned had been before him; his send along one of Jackson's old regiments mind would have put them there; but my also. I asked him to permit the Hellions mother had always insisted on providing to present him with the pine hill to-morrow for just the dinner that Old Bailey had de• morning to go with his breakfast. He in• scribed. quired if I thought the Hellions could do The fierceness of the morning was still it." with the colonel, but now he was fiercely hap• He waited, twisting at his mustaches that py. Occasionally his red-brown face flamed fifty odd years had thinned and grayed and a smile. He nodded and shook his head, grizzled, until the clamor that he heard had carrying on a tense, gay conversation while died down. Old Bailey groaned. he helped the plates Old Bailey passed. "I thought so," the colonel said, smiling. When the parched-corn coffee had come he He hesitated a moment as if not sure about filled his pipe and leaned back against the making another statement. cypress tree behind him. He seemed to be "Gentlemen, the Hellions have never yet listening, pride and modesty in his blurred turned back, but if in the morning they black eyes. Once or twice he waved his should come back down that hill — well, I hand impatiently, crying out, "It was the am under promise never to turn back. Oh, Hellions, not I." no, not to the general." "Dat wuz Cap'n Frank's speech 'bout A tender smile lighted his face for a sec• him," explained Old Bailey. ond, and the dinner was over. Sitting ten feet away on a log, I could al• At two o'clock he began the letter. The most hear the songs that he then heard. All peculiar calm of the summer afternoon set• the tenseness and fierceness were smoothed fled down over the woods. The birds and and sweetened out of his face; he clapped squirrels, when they moved at all, seemed his hands, shouting out heartily, as if to more to be playing than waging their little make himself heard above a babel of voices, battles for food. Cosey was out across the "Good, Joe, good; you can sing." Then the Bayou in a bateau fishing in the shade of an whole table must have joined together after overhanging tree. Old Bailey sat dozing the soloist had done. The colonel laughed near the front of the tent, inside of which out loudly, shooting snatches of song about the colonel was writing. From time to "My Bonnie lies over the ocean" into a time he stopped, stared ahead of him, riot of discord that was raging about him. rubbed his chin, went on writing again. After a while, his face gentle and shining, After a while I went down to the edge of he rose and lifted his tin cup to his lips. the clear black water to fish for perch and "It's only tin cups and parched-corn cof• to try to think if anything more could be fee, gentlemen, but it's the best we've got. done for the colonel's eleventh fight on Lost They never ask more; we never give less." Hill. A little gasolene boat came cough• "Speeches 'bout de ladies back home," ing down the Bayou from Touraine, twenty explained Old Bailey. miles up, on its way to Mooringsport, ten After having risen and touched the cup miles below. to his lips eight or ten times, the colonel At five o'clock Old Bailey, holding his stood straight, hesitated a moment and then head to one side, brought me the letter, said: folded and sealed in the fashion of the six• "To the sweetest rebel I know." ties. Saying nothing, he turned and crawled "Miss Lucy," moaned Old Bailey. slowly back up the bank. The letter, as I Presently, when all the things had been knew without looking at it, bore the name cleared from the table, the colonel leaned of my mother's sister who had died shortly forward, his thin old face tense and fierce after Appomattox. Wrapping it in a hand• again. kerchief, I put it in my inside pocket to car• "I believe all of us here are Hellions ex• ry home, where the other ten, unopened, lay cept Joe," began the colonel, "and he ought at the bottom of my mother's cedar chest. 96 The Little Colonel of Lost Hill

Night came on with its owls and wet down, had turned black. Lighting a lan• odors and multitudinous little bodiless tern, I saw the colonel struggling to rise to a sounds back in the woods. Thirty minutes sitting posture. By the time I got to him after supper Cosey was asleep under the he was sitting up, and there was a pained, wagon. Old Bailey was at his usual place puzzled, ferocious expression on his face. before the tent dozing. The fire had been But he got off the cot, slowly, and stood doused with water so as not to attract to the up unsteadily. Old Bailey's head, with its camp the few mosquitoes of the season. I red-shot eyes and white side whiskers, came wished hopelessly that the colonel might from the blackness outside into the dim, this year forego the walk on the bluff over• melancholy yellow light of the lantern. looking the water, for he was in need of all "He ain't able to-day." he muttered, the rest he could get. shaking his head. "Marse Jack jes' ain't On leaving the tent he said tenderly to able dis time." that Joe Castle that had sung so well at The colonel slipped on his trousers, and dinner, "Joe, if you don't mind, I'd like that touch of passionate gray sent the fire of to be alone now. You understand, don't a great day (laming through him. Quickly you?" he threw on the rest of his clothes, buckled For over an hour he paced back and on the belt and the silver spurs and walked forth on the hard, high ground, his silhou• briskly out in front of the tent. Hesitat• ette against the white moonlight a wrinkled ing a second, while his eyes accommodated line of gray. Now he sighed profoundly, themselves to the darkness, he went out again he went humming some old tune that among the loyal old oaks standing waiting was so blurred and low that I could not anxiously for him. make it out. While he gave the usual orders I roused Then he came back to the tent for the Cosey, the little bay was saddled, and the prayer. His prayer had always seemed very negroes got out for use once again the private to me, and so I strolled down the stretcher that had borne him back ten times Bayou a piece and stood watching where from Lost Hill. a school of minnows dashed and played be• Now he was striding in from the regiment, tween the water and the light. When I the darkness opening before his blazing thought the colonel must have finished his eyes. Getting into the saddle, he rode annual prayer, I walked toward his tent. carefully down the path by the Bayou, and As I neared it I heard him raise his voice I could almost see the great old oaks falling sharply. in behind him. It was sacrilege to intrude "Why, damn it, sir, General Lee wants unnecessarily into that aged, ever-fighting the hill, and I have written Miss Lucy that regiment, and the two negroes and I started I will take it." out two hundred yards behind. But it had the sound of furious reverence. The path was broad and safe; the colo• When he had gone to bed I was free to lie nel and the little bay did not rise high down at the foot of his cot. I think my un• enough to strike the limbs of the cypress spoken prayer was that he be given strength trees. When he had come to the branch to fight once more on Lost Hill. The in• he dismounted, tied his horse to a hanging tense after-midnight stillness was in the limb and struck out eastward through the woods. I fell asleep uneasily. woods. The further he got in, the slower A groan woke me, and I wondered if the and more noiselessly he made his way. time had come to rise. Shoving my watch Now he stopped, facing back toward us. out under the tent's side wall, I saw by the I thought the dear silent regiment of faith• paling moonlight that it was only 1.30 ful oaks drew up closer to him to feel the o'clock. Two or three times after that these mighty thrill of his pounding, passionate unprecedented groans dragged me into a heart. A thin, whitish powder of light was distressed wakefulness. sifting through the trees. Old Bailey stood I was only dozing when I heard the thin, staring breathlessly at his master's flaming acid voice saying, "My God, what's the face. The wind stirred stealthily. A sweet, matter with me?" The front and back fiery smell of decaying things came creeping flaps of the tent had been left open for the along the black ground. On our right a red breeze; the night outside, the moon gone bird hopped nervously about in a tree, a The Little Colonel of Lost Hill 97 stream of blood pulsing on a field of gray. But the colonel was dragging himself Out ahead of us the pines whispered and upright. His breath was tearing itself out sobbed on Lost Hill. of his chest. The sabre trailed on the The regiment was moving. The colonel, ground. crouching low, went forward hanging in an• "Yeah! Hellions!" guish between a run and a walk. We kept Up and up and up the hill he went, bent close to him now; he was panting hard. half over. Slowly — oh, how slowly! He We were at the foot of Lost Hill. The could hardly walk; some invisible weight white light was thick in the woods. A blue was crushing down upon his poor little jay shrieked the signal of discovery. wasted shoulders. He was approaching the "Yeah! Hellions!" spot where he had always fallen, defeated. One little man could not have yelled that. "Yeah! Hellions!" The pines up at the top of the hill started There was no breath in him now. Only back affrighted. a blazing whisper came out of his lips, The colonel went scrambling up the ris• but it was a battle cry. ing ground. The oaks came streaming "Yeah! Hellions!" after him. The huge, curved sabre, in two The sobbing pines cried louder than he. hands, whirred and hissed through the air. His charge was the pace of a funeral, but Now the colonel fell to his knees. He it was a charge. dodged his head to one side and pushed the He was there! Before him the obstruc• black blade upward in a tremendous burst tion where he had always lost the fight! of strength, and staggered to his feet, smil• Here the blue giant that had ever struck ing terribly. him down! Gripping the sabre with both "That's for you, Mister Picket," he hands, he raised it tremulously and with breathed hoarsely. a tremendous groan swung at the air. He suddenly found that he could not The sabre wrenched itself free and slid move forward. Hack, hack, hack, and rattling down the hill. The colonel did not every time the sabre fell a pine tree gaped a fall. He stood with his hands pressed to piteous wound. his head, puzzled, groping in his mind. And the way upward was clear to his His face cleared suddenly. eyes again. He started steadily ahead, "Cut him through and through," he turned and cried out, "My God, they're whispered triumphantly. falling back." He charged on past the place where he He ran stumbling down the hill ten or had always fallen. fifteen feet. He beat at a dozen trees with Hatless, he stood on the very crest of the the flat of his sabre. hill, and the sun striking his face was "Yeah! Hellions!" dimmed. He was charging up the hill again, his "My boy," he whispered to an imagi• eyes flashing victory, his mouth twitching at nary orderly. "Tell General Lee the Hel• a smile. Unexpectedly, unprecedentedly lions have the honor to present him pine he fell forward on his face. hill for breakfast." "Here with the stretcher," I bellowed to But in all the five years that he lived after Old Bailey and Cosey, who were not ten that his mind remained as it was on that feet away, bellowing because it seemed that morning, and there was always with him in the air was thick and greasy with screaming his house a figure he called Lucy; so we knew bullets. why he had fought so long on Lost Hill. STANDARDS OF A BOURGEOIS FAMILY

A FRENCHWOMAN'S LESSONS TO AMERICAN GIRLS

By Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant

Plus me plaist le séjour qu'ont basty mes ayeux of the daughters of liberty to whom they Que des palais Romains le front audacieux. have opened their doors so generously in the last few years has, I know, been a MADAME RAVIGNAC constant puzzle to the logical minds of would be called in Maine the Ravignacs, and I fear that Monsieur "a plain family woman"; Ravignac, poor man, was summing up his in Paris I have heard her final conclusions on the occasion of his labelled, by the more intel• naming it, as he rose from the lunch table, lectual of her acquaint• "une idée colossale de pique-nique." A huge ance, " the true type of a bourgeois house• picnic! The moment was one of supreme wife." For all that, when I received, a exasperation, when logic will out, and it few days ago, a letter announcing that struck me at the time as portentous. she had decided to sell the fine old house Madame Ravignac, though she thorough• and garden above the Seine, and move to ly agreed with him, hastened to take the a flat where there would be no place for part of the picnickers. But indeed she al• pensionnaires, the news came like an in• ways found excuses for them — they had ternational calamity. not been taught as French girls are from Who now, I wonder, will help Ameri• early childhood, she used to tell her hus• can girls to catch a glimmer of the signifi• band, to consider every day as a link to cance that a commonplace surface may be carefully wrought into the chain of conceal? By living out her busy, self- the years — and she spoiled them, dear forgetful days before their eyes, Madame madame, quite too much. Ravignac somehow invested simplicity How many times I have seen her mend• and the dull domestic round with a new ing the clothes of the heedless! "Why, meaning and an unaccustomed charm. it's just a stitch," she would defend her• It was not merely that economy bloomed self, "and I can't let a good frock go to in her hands into a subtly creative art; pieces." How many times I have heard more important was the sense, which she her explain American customs to friends unconsciously conveyed, that the roots who dropped in on purpose to remark of her average family were nourished, in that Mademoiselle Smith seemed to be a this supposedly inconstant Paris, too, by charming girl, but what a pity she should the rich soil of a consistent and nobly go motoring alone with young men ! The serious theory of life. An impersonal extravagant had only to express an in• theory, it seemed, which tested the pas• tention of patronizing one of the Immor• sions and aims of mere individuals by tals on the rue de la Paix, and madame their conformity to the established laws bestirred herself to secure a discount, by of a great civilized society. Yet it ob• the influence, perhaps, of an acquaint• viously yielded such deep personal sat• ance who had a cousin in the cloth busi• isfactions that the most empty-headed ness. "No use in spending more than of pensionnaires, who began by pitying you need, my dear," she would say, and Madame Ravignac's limitations, found sit down to write several notes. But she herself, sooner or later, examining in was even more ready to help the eco• their light the foundations and rewards nomical to bargain for a "model," or a of her own restless and uncharted ac• bit of old lace, and summoned an infi• tivities. nite variety of petits fournisseurs to their What "theory" or system could pos• service. At Madame Ravignac's the belle sibly underlie the kaleidoscopic existence always found a rose on her table when she 98 Standards of a Bourgeois Family 99 was dining out; the invalid always had a bly the general dreariness of my abode. special dish ; the literary aspirant was taken Bette's great brown eyes were relentless to distinguished salons on Sunday after• mirrors too, and I remember just how she noon. Monsieur Ravignac himself not looked, to the last detail of her plump red infrequently left his sculptor's studio to cheeks, her long black lashes, and the escort deputations of the "artistic" to curls arranged with such glossy coquetry private views, or make a petit tour with over her shoulders. But it is significant them in the Louvre or the Cluny. -—since even now her mother's spirit is That none of these privileges were more vivid to me than her features — that "nominated in the bond" — for in prin• I should have kept no such definite first ciple the Ravignacs merely offered a home impression of Madame Ravignac beyond to girls who were old enough to be learn• her general air of capacity and the light ing their Paris independently — makes in her gray eyes. It was a soft light as one regret the more that the picnickers Well as a keen one that flashed at me from have proved unworthy of them. It was their oddly tilted corners, and an impulse not hard to read between the discreet of generous devotion, which I was soon lines of Madame Ravignac's letter. "You to recognize as her dominant character• may not be surprised," it ran, "though istic, sounded in her next words: I know you will grieve with me about the "You may come to-morrow — do come change. Mais, que voulez-vous! My hus• to-morrow ! I must, of course, speak with band feels that not only the material but my husband first"-—this phrase became the spiritual education of our daughters as familiar as the unselfishness — "but I demands a quiet place by ourselves. Their am sure he will agree with me. Il faut future and their dots will, moreover, be s'arranger: one must take life as it comes. secured by the sacrifice of the house. The house is too expensive for us with This does not mean, however," the letter our small family; and besides, it is so ended, "that there will not always be a vast, so solitary since my father's death! room for our friends. How long it seems And I have so much the habit of illness since you, chère amie, ceased to be a pen• that I can massage your knee myself, and sionnaire! We understood one another, give you a régime which will set you up I believe, from the moment when I found at once. My poor father"-—her narrow you in that triste place, and decided to eyes grew misty — "was often tempted make you our first guest." by my little dishes. You must tell your relatives." she concluded, with the smile "That triste place" — the words recall at once caustic and tender in which one the involuntary exclamation wrung from seemed to detect the perpetual struggle of Madame Ravignac by the aspect of my her heart to modify the native dryness of sanitarium room. I can see her standing her judgment, "that I shall take great there in the middle of the floor, a slight care of you. Chez moi, let me say in pass• figure in heavy mourning, holding the ing, only the best materials are used. It hand of a solemn small daughter, dressed is a home we offer, and the tradition of likewise in black, and hear her cry, as her our food, inherited, of course, from my penetrating glance turned dubiously from mother, cannot injure the most delicate the green calcimined blankness to the stomach. Viens, ma fille," she said, turn• young American, "Mais—c'est lugubre!" ing to Bette, "tell mademoiselle that she Lugubre — that single adjective was a final will be welcome in your parents' house." appraisement. The Ravignacs, looking facts in the "Dismal indeed, my strange young face, had accepted in theory the necessity lady from over the sea, " repeated Bette-— of pensionnaires, and my semi-invalidism though in silence, for even at three years went far to make the first practical ap• old she was well disciplined to polite plication of the theory endurable to Ma• usage — drinking in my strangeness from dame Ravignac. But neither I nor the under the stiffly rolled brim of her patent- two or three other American girls who leather hat, whose shiny surface, broken soon made their appearance at the old only by a ribbon that hung straight down house can have realized, at the time, the behind, struck me as mirroring inflexi• cost to a family of this type--—a family of 100 Standards of a Bourgeois Family bourgeois and intellectual inheritance-— polished floors. The family purse might of taking strangers into their midst. What be slim,but a meek little personage known is customary in Germany and not un• as le flotteur never failed to glide in with known in England and America, violates his heavy brush on Saturday, to rub them in France an intimacy prized above any• into a state of waxed perfection over which thing in life. But the Ravignacs' deli• high "American" heels must pick their cate hospitality, once their decision was way with care. If the heels, as the young made, gave no hint of intrusion. Madame ladies asserted, were "French" rather made light of the criticism of her friends: than "American," then America, madame "Cela m'est bien égal! How, pray, can declared, was perpetuating the outworn I give up the house that my father built, absurdities of Queen Marie Antoinette, the house where I was married, the house, which the ancestors of her good shoe• too, where my own children were born? maker, down there on the Quai, had dis• You will notice," she continued, as she carded at the time of the Revolution. showed me about,on the first day, through Madame Ravignac had never displayed the four stately, high-ceiled apartments a heel above two inches high in her life, on the ground-floor, "that these rooms and obviously considered those of her are all connected? It was for my sake, pensionnaires unbecoming to the sim• mademoiselle. 'It's for the day of your plicity that nature and society demanded marriage, my child, that I have built the of young girls. house thus, ' my father used to say to me, The theory of the jeune fille as a creat• when I was quite a little girl, 'so that all ure altogether innocent and obliterated our friends may celebrate with us the was. however, far from being that of consummation of your happiness.' Ah, Madame Ravignac. Her father, a good mademoiselle, that was a beautiful day Catholic bourgeois citizen, turned scien• when it came — as yours will be," she tist and professor, had married, as she added inevitably. "The studio had al• said, "the sort of woman such a man ready been built, down there in the gar• chooses," so that conventions which pre• den, for my husband was glad to help me vail alike in less cultivated and in smarter not to desert papa.' circles had not narrowed her upbringing: We had been standing at a long win• she had read a great deal, and gone out dow which opened on a narrow balcony. alone, as a matter of course, after the age The front windows faced a quiet avenue of eighteen. In her father's set greater where chestnut trees bloomed in the "protection" would have seemed prudish spring; but from those at the back, one affectation. looked far over the intimate enclosure of "You foreigners," she once exclaimed, the garden and down upon the Seine, as " have indeed an odd conception of well- it flowed under its arching bridges: the brought-up girlhood in France. I know eye could follow its silver windings all the what you say: 'Poor little French girls, way from the close-built, towered region never allowed to amuse themselves, never of the town's gray heart, on the one hand, free to make use of their own legs and to where, in the other distance, beyond eyes!' It's no more true of our friends pale reaches, the blurred outlines of wood• than the mariage de convenance." ed heights announced the park of St. Madame Ravignac herself, as she often Cloud. No pensionnaire could help bless• told us, had made, rather late, a mariage ing madame's father for remaining cam• d'amour, after having freely refused several pagnard de cœur, as she put it, in spite of unimpeachable partis, and this marriage his laboratory, and choosing such a site was undoubtedly tending to emphasize in memory of Burgundy. Everybody en• more and more her temperamental bent joyed the spacious rooms, with their solid, toward an absorbed and circumscribed carved furniture, their hangings which domesticity. For her children were ex• madame had herself embroidered in her acting, her husband was not an "intel• jeune fille days, and their polished floors lectual," and since her father's death which reflected so brightly the gleam of there was little to bind her to his world of the open fires. ideas but ties of long-established use and It was tradition again that gave us our affection. Yet her liberal youth had re- Standards of a Bourgeois Family 101 vealed to her the meaning of intellectual his every feature and attitude. Un brave curiosity and artistic ambition ; she could homme — a fine sort, you would call him understand very well what called young on sight: industrious and hard-working America to cross the sea. But for a nice to the point of bustle, and fundamentally girl of twenty to wear rustling silk linings, kind and good in spite of a hot temper. striking furs, a red coat, or pearl ear-rings When one read his favorite journal, Le -—this was incomprehensible, this seemed Temps, his very words seemed to repeat to her almost disreputable. themselves down the page, and I doubt "Ah, vous êtes belle, mademoiselle, il ne whether he would have admitted the faut pas faire tant de frais pour nous — you validity of any political or social theory must not be so formal with us simple not summed up in those well-bred, con• folk," was her greeting to Mademoiselle servative columns. If socialism was ab• Jones, of New York, when that pretty horrent to his soul, so also was any revo• young person appeared at dinner in a very lutionary principle in art ; he preferred elaborate evening gown. It was lightly the Français to the Théâtre Antoine, and graciously spoken, but Mademoiselle and, as regards the Salon, stood with Jones looked down, as with new eyes, on the old Society against the new. Ma• her frills, and from them to madame's dame echoed his convictions with the plain, tight-fitting black. And she was intellectual submission that is entirely not long in discovering that in the authen• sincere in the French wife, even though tic Paris, as the Ravignacs understood it, her more flexible intelligence very evi• the boulevards and the café concerts were dently made her not only the practical no less banal and factitious than the frills. administrator of her husband's daily life, One of madame's favorite stories, in• but an infallible counsellor in his own deed, related how, at a scientific congress, province, as well. an American professor of physics had A new conception of the relation of the asked her father to show him " Maxim's. " sexes, founded on a new definition of "Pensez donc, mon ami," she would say equality, was, then, one of the ideas that to her husband across the table, laughing took shape in the heads of the pension• heartily for the thousandth time at the naires during those long slow meals in incomparable humor of the suggestion, the panelled dining-room, which proved "Just think, papa at Maxim's! Papa their chief hours of illumination. Against who had to be dragged from his test-tubes this sombre background, the changing to his meals, and even resented the time shades of comment and criticism in Ma• he gave to his lectures at the Collège de dame Ravignac's colorless mobile face, France!" the quick sure movements of her slender " But don't painters and poets go to the hands, became peculiarly impressive, and cafés, monsieur?" asked one bold young not one of her unrelenting analytical woman. phrases missed fire, even if she seemed, " Not to those commercialized boulevard when she let it fall, very much en• places, mademoiselle, you may be sure," gaged with her youngest, the mischievous replied Monsieur Ravignac with finality. Jacqueline, whose high-chair touched her "They have something better to do, " he elbow. Her husband, on the other side ended, proceeding to replenish Bette's of the table, was flanked by the high-chair plate, and mix her wine and water, and of his adored Bette; and as this delicious looking up, surprised, at the general laugh. plat succeeded that, under madame's "You don't make much of a bohemian, watchful eye, and monsieur, for his part, my poor Jean," said madame, happily pressed red wine upon his guests — the accepting her spouse anew — his stout wine, like the cherries in May, came from awkward figure, his square-cut black a rustic Burgundian estate of which one beard, his honest black eyes, which held heard a great deal — there was much time no shadow of humor or irony — with her for mutual understanding. smile of cherishing devotion. Too much! complained those of the Monsieur Ravignac might be a sculp• young ladies who were above interna• tor, but family affection and bourgeois tional comparisons, and did not relish the conviction were indeed written large on familiar flavor of these pleasant, leisurely 102 Standards of a Bourgeois Family occasions. Of course, the most interest• brother the witty journalist, or any other ing revelation, to some of us, was the one of the artistic and scientific familiars who which proved the compatibility of econ• were always dropping in to lunch. No omy and generosity: dishes tempting and wonder their friends liked to come to the bountiful beyond the dreams of gourmands Ravignacs', for even if we were half-way were here achieved, it was evident, by an through a meal, they were greeted with art which took exact account of every shrieks of joy from the little girls, mon• cheese paring, and calculated the value sieur reinforced his exclamatory welcome of a lettuce leaf; the lights were extin• by pumping their arms up and down, guished there during dinner, but the salon and madame, after kissing them on both was always gay with fresh flowers; and cheeks, would hurry off, enchanted, to though a white blouse might seem a make them another omelet with her own luxury to our hostess, there was no doubt hands. that she considered real lace a necessity. The cook was used to these frequent in• The presence of the admirable Bette vasions of her domain. Madame Ravign• and her more vivid younger sister was a ac could not be called an easy mistress; grievance to Mademoiselle Jones, who she would teach her servants to faire des felt ill-used if they spilled wine on their economies, or nurse them if they were ill; bibs, and failed to understand that but they did not stay long under her roof French manners are acquired, precisely, unless they proved themselves as nimble by a long familiarity with the uses of good and executive and self-forgetful as her• society. Her nerves were upset by the con• self. Work, not idleness, was the end of stant jumping up and down; her sensibili• life, so she told her household and her ties were shocked by the French habit of children. Bette, at a very early age, was calling a spade a spade. And as for hear• trained to be a petite mère de famille. ing over and over again that madame's And as for Madame Ravignac, she was mother used only the best butter, or that never too tired to spend her whole being monsieur son père preferred a cutlet to a in generous service; the more she could steak! " It's like living with ghosts," she do for you, the better she loved you, as I grumbled. who have been ill under her roof have When remarks of this sort were ex• reason to know. Her heart and will re• changed, under the breath, perhaps, and sponded to every new obligation as to a in a language which she was supposed not trumpet blast, although, between her to understand, Madame Ravignac made household and social duties, and the les• no comment whatever. The language sons and pleasures of the pensionnaires, of la politesse was to her the universal there was not a moment she could call tongue, so she kept those narrow tilted her own from nine in the morning, when eyes of hers firmly fixed on her plate, she started off so gayly to do her market• knowing full well that if her husband, ing, wheeling Jacqueline in the go-cart, fuming in his chair, caught the least re• with Bette trudging alongside under the sponse in them, he would more likely patent-leather hat, till she came down to than not jump to his feet and order the dinner at seven, an unusual color in her young woman incontinently out of the long pale face, her straight brown hair house. But though the lines about her falling down a little over her eyes, after mouth tightened, Madame Ravignac bathing her pair and tucking them up for never lifted her eyes till the danger point the night. was past. In the evening, if Mademoiselle Robin• Then, with the quaint smile which, be• son did not have to be chaperoned to her cause it brought out such tender sparkles dancing class, and there was nobody to of light in their opaque gray, seemed to dinner, Madame Ravignac really had defy one to find a hint of criticism there, her husband to herself for an hour or so. she would begin to tell us still another And how she did count those hours! anecdote of her dear ghosts. Most of us "C'est si gentil, le soir," she would say to had a great affection not only for hers, me, "when we sit together in my father's but for monsieur's ghosts, too; we felt study under the lamp, his books all about them as much our intimates as madame's us, the children asleep in their beds in the Standards of a Bourgeois Family 103

next room, my husband reading Le Temps dumping them breathless in their seats, to me as I sew, and discussing his work and a little later lifting them out as breath• and public affairs — ah, mademoiselle, these lessly at some ugly station in a remote are the rewards of marriage, these hours square. At the station door, I say to my• of intimate talk. My husband has the self, their great friends, the painter Jolier highest respect for my opinion, and you and his wife, will be waiting impatiently may guess what his wise guidance is to with the tickets and the morning papers, me." A husband was not a beau cheva• and they will all run down the platform, lier, who heaped roses in one's lap and excitedly chattering, climb into a com• spread a purple cloak for one's feet — that partment — possibly third class — and after she made clear to romantic America. He an half hour or so, alight at a little white was, rather, a constant weight, pressed village on a river bank. There will be, of close against one's heart, a souci which course, poplars along this calm bank, and now and then made this same heart bleed. patient immovable figures holding fishing- But it was worth what suffering it brought, lines, and, for the eye of the gentlemen, the marriage relation, and the things that who never forget the approach of midi, an hurt most were, after all, the non-essen• inn or two in the distance. One inn has a tials — the childishness, the small stupid• garden set with little tables — that looks ities of man. That was what men were a bit expensive, so why not try the other, like, especially the clever ones. which offers a more sociable long table, Monsieur Ravignac's cleverness was under an arbor? one of the things that his wife loved to Every detail of the meal comes back dwell upon. "On demandera ça a mon to me: the teasing humors of Liline, al• mari" was a phrase often on her lips. His ways naughty and spirituelle; the whis• sense for color — to take an instance-— pered reproofs of Bette, over whose seri• was impeccable. " Let's ask my husband; ous maternal care for her sister and he'll know in a minute," she would sug• brothers the two ladies exchange a moved gest, when some girl was hesitating over look; the bewilderment of the gauche the shade of a garniture. And monsieur, country waiter, jolted out of his week- the kind soul, would be summoned, all in long sleep, and tormented by the jokes his blouse, from his studio, a little bored and the demands of these Parisians. to be disturbed, but on the whole rather There are ruminative pauses, anecdotic flattered, and cast a critical eye on the interludes, and deep dégustations. Over costume before the long mirror. Mon• the coffee, the gentlemen, mindful of their sieur liked pretty frocks as well as an• professions, discuss the nuances of the other of his race, and sometimes shook his view: how it has been "done"; how the head over his wife's hats in those later present school is doing it; how it may be years when there came a petit Jean, and done in next year's salon. Then there is finally a petit Philippe to lessen her al• the afternoon, with its adventurous essay ready faint interest in her own person, by of the stream in a row-boat, the long slow adding to the duties as well as to the joys walk along a dusty ribbon of white road, of life. Jean and Philippe trailing more and more behind till they are lifted to well-cush• If Madame Ravignac vaunted the ioned masculine shoulders; the drinking " duties," it must not be thought that she of pink grenadine in another garden, full did not also adore a certain sort of break by this time of other family parties; and in the domestic round. I am sure that I finally the return to Paris, after a day cannot be the only friend of the family in which nothing intrinsically interesting who, on a fine Sunday morning in spring, has been said or done, with a conviction wakes with a sigh for Paris, and — remem• of high holiday and achievement. bering that this is the day sacred to ex• cursions — sees the dear things starting Such diversions, be it clearly under• out of the front door, madame deftly ty• stood, have their established place, like ing the last cap, monsieur faithfully but• marketing, or going to school, or making toning the last coat, both of them hurry• your first communion, in the scheme of ing Bette and Jacqueline and Jean and bourgeois existence, and do not turn life Philippe down the steps of the "Metro," itself into a picnic in the sense used by 104 Standards of a Bourgeois Family

Monsieur Ravignac at the meal which his perceptions and volatile ways of his wife's letter recalls. By way of further second daughter were a perpetual trial; elucidation of his dictum, and of the loss Bette's calm good sense and her tact it brings, in my opinion, to the young seemed to him a much safer feminine en• Americans who should have been the dowment. Madame raised her eyebrows future generations of pensionnaires, I must in response. She did not understand the revert to the occasion in question. toothache either. Though time had changed me from a We were just finishing our omelet pensionnaire to a friend with all the priv• when the door opened and Monsieur ileges of "dropping in," I realized when Jacques appeared, correct and ironical, a I arrived at the house that day and found heavy lock of gray hair carefully arranged the family, with Alice White, the tall over his forehead, and his grizzled mus¬ American blonde of the moment, al• tachios screwed into the sharpest of mili• ready assembled in the dining-room, that tary points. Four pairs of childish eyes my hour had been ill-chosen. Something -—for even Bette, the paragon, yielded to had gone wrong. Madame Ravignac temptation — examined his cheeks for a embraced me warmly, nevertheless, and possible swelling, as he shook hands all said, as if she were not perturbed, and as round, and made a polite apology. if her husband were not obviously out of "Mon oncle," began the irrepressible sorts, that it was delightful I had come, Jacqueline, "haven't you-—" "Tais-toi, for my old friend, her brother Jacques, ma flic," interrupted madame, conquer• had arrived the night before from his ing a smile. For she had at once related mission in the East, and was stopping the bandage to those impeccable mus¬ with her till his own flat should be pre• tachios: a lovely American blonde was pared. They were waiting for him now; worth the trouble of a thorough metallic Liline had been sent to call him. "While curling, it appeared. we stifle the pangs of hunger," added "Eh Men, mon vieux," began Monsieur monsieur, sharply reproving the two little Jacques easily — he had a gift of turning boys who sat opposite him, for shaking the tables — looking from Monsieur Ra• their yellow heads, wriggling in their chairs, vignac, who was pouring out the wine and showing their bare knees above the with an abstracted air, to his sister, as she table's edge. Bette, whose nine years and skilfully dissected the fowl-—"well, you whose role of fille ainee now made her quite two, what is the matter? You look, both equal to any situation, tossed her curls of you. my excellent brother and sister, as over her shoulders and inquired, in a po• if you were of Gautier's opinion — isn't it litely conversational tone, whether Mad• Gautier?-—about the futility of existence. emoiselle Alice had enjoyed her morning's 'Rien ne sert a rien, et tout d'abord, il n'y work. Madame was just poking her head a rien-—'" he quoted. "I, for one, can't down the dumb-waiter to summon the agree with him, not when I am visiting omelet anyhow, when Liline burst into the my best friends and drinking their vin de room. bourgogne," and he sipped his wine with a " I think he has a toothache, poor Uncle pleasurable indrawing of the lips, tossed Jacques," she began, in her monotonous his gray lock, twisted his mustachios, and childish treble, climbing into her chair, regarded me quizzically across the table. and backing around mechanically, so that "That's all very well for a successful her father might tie her bib, "I opened journalist with no responsibilities," re• his door" — "You didn't knock?" ex• torted madame, helping herself to the last claimed Madame, "will nothing teach and least promising portion of the fowl; this flyaway manners!" — "and he had "but if you had four children to provide for, a funny bandage over his mouth comme a big house on your hands, and Mademoi• ca"-—she seized two forks and held them selle Marsh, one of your two guests of the against her thin cheeks with her most elf-like winter who has gone off in a huff---" expression-—"and he seemed very cross, and "And why, " interrupted Monsieur Ra• told me to say he was coming at once." vignac, fiercely pulling his square black Monsieur Ravignac took away the beard; " why, do you suppose? Because forks, and his faithful black eyes asked we won't allow her to spoil our children, his wife a troubled question. The witty our well-brought-up children!" Standards of a Bourgeois Family 105

"Now, now, mon ami," corrected "A monsieur for Mademoiselle Alice" madame gently, "you must remember -—(Marie's cheeks flamed as she fell to that the poor woman is very much alone clearing the table)—"he is waiting in the and deséquilibrée. My heart aches for the salon, but he said I was to whisper to poor dear — no wonder she loved our four mademoiselle that the train goes soon." too well. Here she is, Jacques, sufficient• Alice blushed a little, too, but explained, ly pretty, rich, well educated, but her with great self-possession, in spite of a parents are dead, her sisters are married, sort of solidifying of the family surface: she hasn't a single binding tie. She "It's only my friend Jack Brown, madame, didn't marry, all because her father wanted and we are going sketching at Versailles," to keep her at home, if you'll believe it! and rising, she kissed Liline, smiled a gen• He was lonely, and said there should be eral good-by from her blue eyes, and one old maid in every family — ah, I must swished nonchalantly through the door. say I don't understand it!" "Jolie fille!" remarked Monsieur "Papa, I shall marry at eighteen," an• Jacques, with appreciation. nounced Liline, with conscious virtue. "Yes, indeed," said his sister eagerly; "Parents," continued Monsieur Ra• "we are devoted to her, aren't we, Jean? " vignac impatiently, "who don't look for• But monsieur muttered something about ward to the day when they will be no more spoiled children, and there followed rather are no parents at all, in my opinion. a dismal pause. It was not, indeed, until Young girls don't always think ahead, nat• madame had made the coffee over the urally, and it is therefore the parents' duty gas-jet in the corner, and the children, to point out, at the suitable time, the only replete with petits canards, had been sent road to happiness — what is it, Marie?" upstairs, that conversation was resumed. "A big bundle from the Bon Marché, "Eh bien?" asked Monsieur Jacques, for Mademoiselle White, " replied the red- "now that we are by ourselves, what is cheeked bonne, returning from one of it, really? This friend here," he added, her periodic journeys to answer the door ; turning to me, "your American inter• "fifty francs to pay." preter; can't she clear up the difficulty?" "Ne vous dérangez pas, mon enfant," "Poor mademoiselle, " agreed madame; cried Madame Ravignac. "I have the "we do consult her like a hand-book! money in my pocket," and she had hur• But it's really nothing but the cantanker¬ ried out before the young American had ousness of Mademoiselle Marsh, which turned her pretty head. I have already described, and the ad• "Are you getting the moral, madem• mirers of Mademoiselle White, of whom oiselle?" inquired Monsieur Jacques you have just had a specimen. " mischievously of his vis-à-vis. Nothing "A charming creature, too." Mon• really escaped her, but with an air of sieur Jacques twisted his mustache. graceful and innocent detachment from "And obviously made for marriage," mundane discussion, she affected not to continued Madame Ravignac. "She is hear, and continued to dip the leaves of lovely, clever, utterly adorable, enfin, and her artichoke in the thick yellow sauce. twenty-two years old — careless and un• "Thank you so much, dear madame," formed yet, but capable of the most beau• she said very prettily to our returning tiful development. This is evidently the hostess. "How do you always manage time for her to be settling the lines of her to have money on hand? I never have life, but is she thinking seriously of matri• a sou! I am so enjoying this delicious mony? No, indeed, she's having far too sauce — was it a rule of your mother's? good a time!" Will you give me the recipe?" "Seeing, even here in Paris," inter• "Yes, indeed, ma chère petite," replied jected her husband, "at least a dozen madame. "I am too delighted to teach different young men. She enjoys them you any art I possess. Who knows but all, she tells us, each for a different rea• your husband will have a liking for French son---" dishes! The most important thing for a "Do not suppose," put in madame a sauce, as maman used to impress upon little anxiously, "that we question the me, is to use the very best butter. Well, propriety of her behavior. Her conduct well, Marie, what is it this time?" is irreproachable, but all the same, and 106 Standards of a Bourgeois Family even though I have her mother's consent After all, life is more amusing when lived that she shall go out with them, it makes with an eye on its central facts." me uncomfortable, the neighbors and ser• "Bien entendit," ejaculated monsieur, vants gossip, and, worst of all, it's exciting "with apologies to you, mademoiselle," for the girl without leading anywhere." -—he turned to me,-—"for I know I can "That is just what I maintain," Mon• speak as I should to a friend of our nation ; sieur Ravignac asserted, with an em• most of your countrywomen treat the uni• phatic gesture. "Why should not Mad• verse as a playground. With their jour• emoiselle Alice's superfluity of gallants neys, and their bookbinding, and their have the same result in the end as Mad• metal-working, and their frocks, and their emoiselle Marsh's lack of opportunity? sketching, and their lectures, and their If she waits and waits for the knight of 'beaux'! Far be it from me to refuse her dreams! Well, I declare I understand woman a place in the arts, or even in the this American system less every year." learned professions, if she has the requisite Monsieur Jacques, the ironist, who earnestness of purpose and a real talent-— liked nothing better than to stir up his though, of course, for her nothing can take matter-of-fact brother-in-law, said some• the place of marriage, " he was constrained thing about his sister's having married to add. " But I can't see that most of our for love. But Madame Ravignac did not young friends have any end in view but allow any jokes on that subject, and pointed activity itself ! And what permanent satis• out that if her marriage had succeeded it faction, I ask you, " he ended rhetorically, was because she had known how to adapt brushing the crumbs off his knees as he herself to its conditions, and had had a rose with flashing eyes from the table, " do sound training in good house-keeping. they get out of an existence founded on une idée colossale de pique-nique? A fine "Just so," agreed monsieur, not to be example for my daughters!" distracted from his thesis. "There, on the contrary, is a girl who can't mend a stocking, and doesn't know beef from This sounded ominous: yet the news pork." of Alice White with which I was greeted "Ah, Jacques, it's pathetic!" cried ma• several months later, on my arrival at dame. "I take her to market, and ex• la Sapinière — the estate so often vaunted plain how, when one pays a little more in Paris for its homely sauvagerie on its for the cutlet, one pays a little less for hill-top above the rich vineyard land of the fish; how, if one wants strawberries, Burgundy — was of a reassuring nature. one doesn't buy early asparagus the same Alice had written from America of her day, since the allotted amount for a meal engagement to one of the admirers: must not be exceeded, and she is so in• "Celui qui fait la peinture, un garçon très terested! 'If one keeps house this way,' bien," madame joyously announced. she says, 'there's some fun in it ; it's a sort It was Alice again who made the climax of game. We just order by telephone, you to the charming last afternoon of my know, and father pays the monthly bills.'" visit. We had all been, as usual, for a "Yes, indeed, ordering by telephone, long ramble on the montagne-—the mon• that's typical!" Monsieur Ravignac tagne was a rocky ridge that stretched threw up his hands expressively. "And back into wilder country behind the farm, the poor child has no idea what she ought and its furze-grown open spaces, and its to spend, having, if you'll believe me, no adventurous herb-like tang always led us knowledge of the family resources, one farther than we planned. When we turned day reproached for extravagance, the next back, at last, toward the plain and the day called miserly!" sunset-—the rich Burgundian scene again "A contrast, indeed," remarked Mon• spread out for our eyes-—a sense of wide sieur Jacques more seriously, "to our peace was in the air. The children wan• childish share in the financial responsibil• dered off to hunt rabbits in brushy tangles ities of the household. Do you remember, marked "chasse réservée," and I, too, fol• ma sœur, " he said, with a reflective smile, lowed my own way. But as I finally "how enchanted we were to work out emerged on the slope that led precipitously the possibility of a journey to the Ce¬ down to the walls and sheltered the white vennes, the year you made your début? house and vines of la Sapinière, I came The Riddle 107 upon my host and hostess, sitting together quoted Monsieur Ravignac. But there on a flat rock, with the sunset light in he stopped, and the images of the unclassi• their faces. fied activities and the still less classified " We were talking of dear Alice and her admirers seemed to pass before his eyes. happiness," said Madame Ravignac in a "'Plein d'usage et raison?'" Vivre entre moved voice, making room for me beside ses parents le reste de son age?'" he her. queried. "I wonder, I wonder!" " Ce n'est pas grande chose, un mari, "Come along, everybody," cried ma• mademoiselle," said monsieur — his rare dame gaily. " Dépêchez-vous donc, les pe¬ jokes were always a sign of emotion-— tits," she called to the children. "Look, "mais c'est, je crois, ce qu'on a trouvé the chimney is smoking away. That de mieux jusqu'ici!-—a husband doesn't means baths and bedtime, and I must amount to much, but he's probably the hurry to see that Marie puts the chicken best invention that's been made up to into the oven when she should." now. " "Alice declares," Madame Ravignac Monsieur Ravignac must nevertheless hesitated, " that it is all my doing. Of have continued to "wonder" as he watched course, that's nonsense, but if I've been the bewildering activities of the picnick• able to show her what makes life worth ers, and the long and the short of his living—" and she looked up toward conclusions is that the idolized house her four, who were slowly ambling over which madame's father built above the the ridge in our direction, down toward Seine must go. Bricks and mortar are the farm, and then again cherishingly transitory, after all. The real inheri• to her husband, whose face held the tance for grandchildren and children is a same transfigured sense of mercies too point of view and a standard; standards deep for speech, yet counted to the ut• are worth the sacrifice of frail personal most. attachments — the Ravignacs probably reasoned something after this fashion, Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage. and I believe that their act of allegiance Ou comme cestuy là qui conquit la toison, El puis est retourné, plein d'usage et raison, to a transcendent "system" will raise Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son age! them above idle regret.

THE RIDDLE By Charles F. Lummis

I PLANTED a seed in my neighbor's garden (Fair, wee garden where Wonder grows) Wet with a tear, that it may not harden, Seed of a Hope that the dear God knows-— And for its cover, I folded over Five slim petals of a little Wild Rose.

O, Lady-Liege of the Wonder-Garden, Riddle me, how is that seed to be-— Quick with the sun of thy smile and pardon, Or dead and dust for despair of thee? Wilt thou it bloom as a flower in Arden? Wilt thou it perish before we See? Will thy palm forget Where my kiss was set To grow for a thought of me? "CRABBED AGE AND YOUTH"

By Katharine Holland Brown

Illustrations by Alonzo Kimball

CALM and exalted as the red- flight, her sable cloak flowing regally from granite charioteer who her plump shoulders. guides his steeds on the red- "Nice old party, Pat." granite pylon of Queen Hat¬ "Um h'm." Angel Eyes took another asu, these thirty immemorial large, placid bite. "But wouldn't you simply centuries gone, the chauf• shrivel up and expire if you thought you'd feur loomed behind his broad glass shield. ever live to be an old, old lady like that?" Sumptuous as Queen Hatasu's own chariot, "Wouldn't I!" Apple Cheek sighed, from ponderous tires to glittering crested with tragic eyes. door, the great car rolled through the col• lege gates, and stopped portentously be• A slow, commanding rap fell on the fore Cliffe Hall. head mistress's study door. The mistress Apple-cheeked Seventeen, tripping down rose from her low chair, her beautiful ethe• Cliffe steps, nudged Angel-eyed Sixteen at real face smiling with flower-like welcome, her side. exquisite, formal, remote. "That's Mrs. Cornelius Brinckerhoff's Then, as she saw- the figure at the door, car. The Mrs. Brinckerhoff who gave all that fine ivory punctilio melted and fell Burnbrae School their gymnasium, ninety- away. She stood motionless, wide-eyed. foot pool and all. My-—Oh!" Apple The elder woman, pink and flustered, Cheek's dove-blue eyes grew very round. laughed unsteadily: "Guess who!" " Don't you hope she's brought a gymnasi• " Molly-—Eliza-—McCIintock!" um in her carriage-bag for us too?" "Yes, it's Molly McClintock. Didn't you Angel Eyes nodded, her rose-leaf mouth know me, Barby? You darling, blessed girl!" being inconveniently full of panocha. A moment the two old ladies stared, trem• "Yeth. 'Specially if it puts it over bling. Then they stumbled into each Burnbrae. Why, Martha, can that be the other's arms. The mistress's waxen cheek majestical Mrs. Brinckerhoff? Why, what burned crimson, her soft eyes flashed with a very old lady!" tears, when at last she drew back to look With pretty deference, Apple Cheek and on her friend. Mrs. Brinckerhoff's plumed Angel Eyes hastened to assist the very old bonnet tipped rakishly over one eye. She lady just alighting. Rather, the very old was sobbing and laughing in a breath. empress; for Mrs. Brinckerhoff, short, "Molly! It has been so long!" The stout, white-haired and rosy, yet tran• mistress clung to her tenderly, her voice scended her background of lordly chauf• catching between the words, her beautiful, feur and imperial car. fair old face vivid. "Molly, it can't be " You young ladies are students ? " She forty years!" fixed her escort with a terrifying although "It can't be anything else," Mrs. Brinck• a tremulous lorgnette. "I wish to see your erhoff gave her patrician nose a final vicious head mistress, Mrs. Stanton-Chase. She dab, which left it pathetically luminous. resides in this building?" "My last glimpse of you was in April, '71. "Yes, ma'am. This is her receiving On your wedding-day, child." day." "I remember. Yours was the last face "Ah!" Her keen blue eyes lighted eager• I saw as we drove away." The mistress ly. "Then I shall go up unannounced. drew her plump hand close. "Little We are very old friends." 'Lizabeth, all starched and ruffly, was hang• She gave the girls a brisk, pleasant nod, ing to your skirts, and you had set baby and swept away toward the long marble Richard on your shoulder. He was pulling Apple-cheeked Seventeen, tripping down Cliffe steps, nudged Angel-eyed Sixteen at her side.—Page 103. the cherry wreath in your hair, and you were does despise being overweight! He takes laughing up at him. You looked like a right after me, poor boy." Madonna. And I looked back at you as "You!" The mistress scoffed, doting. long as I could see you." A shadowy pink "You're just as lovely as you were in 71" warmed her soft, withered cheek. "It "More lovely." Mrs. Brinckerhoff set• seemed like a good omen, somehow." tled back, comfortably. "Sixty pounds "I'd like to see myself hoist baby Rich• more. But you keep your nymph look, ard to my shoulder nowadays." Barby. You little, spooky, pretty thing! "He hasn't really grown up, Molly?" Do you mind the valentine James J. Duck• "Not unless you call forty-two years, and worth made you, our first year at Oberlin? two hundred pounds, grown up. How he Lace-paper, with stuck-on red hearts, and 109 110 " Crabbed Age and Youth "

'Queen and Huntress, Chaste and Fair,' "A lock of his hair? I-—I wish I could three verses, written in red ink? And how see that lock, Barby. Of course it's long he let you imagine it was his own, and that since thrown away?" you'd inspired it, till the day Professor The mistress looked at her reproach• Leach gave us Ben Jonson in rhetoric fully, then with a glint of mischief. She class?" stooped over a great cedar chest. "Do I remember? The great sap- "Why, Barby! Have you kept your head!" The mistress's angelic old face treasures, too?" crimsoned. The shocking word slipped " Some of them." She lifted out a heavy from her sainted lips utterly unnoticed. old velvet album and unfastened the broad " You can't say much, Molly Eliza! You gilt clasps. Gently she drew from it a yel• know well that you were his first choice. lowed, embossed envelope, which revealed Can't I see him, goggling those pale-blue a lock of auburn hair, quaintly mounted eyes across the classroom at you? And on bristol-board. A languishing curlycue, his pale-blue crochet nuby, that his mother fine and soft as a girl's. made him wear, because his chest was ten• Mrs. Brinckerhoff seemed to be con• der. And his hair, slicked into a roach, trolling herself with difficulty. with two ear-scallops---" "Barbara! Did you ever notice any• "With bears' grease, and spearmint for thing odd about this curl?" scent." Mrs. Brinckerhoff broke in, gig• "Why, no. Only it seemed a shade gling rapturously. She sat with her plump lighter than Samuel's." feet tucked on the chair-round, her plump "It is. Far lighter." Mrs. Brincker• arms hugging her knees. Her blue eyes hoff choked. "Barby! Didn't you ever danced, her cheeks burned deep rose-red. guess"-—then giggles overpowered her, She looked like an impish girl, masquerad• "that-—that all those lovely ringlets were ing in frosty wig and fairy-godmother wrin• my hair?" kles. "Wasn't he the beatenest for per• " Your hair!" fumery! Mind how he'd philander around Mrs. Brinckerhoff confessed between at our students' socials at Masonic Hall, shamed chuckles. and let us girls sniff his handkerchief? He "It was j-just Samuel's wicked deception. always allowed me two sniffs, as a particu• He came home on a furlough the day they larly tender attention. 'Balm of a Thou• shingled my hair. I'd had malarial fever. sand Flowers---'" And Samuel pounced on four long curls, "No, that was the label on his hair-oil and cut them up into rings. And 1 bottle. I know, because your brother mounted them for him. With flour paste. Samuel once stole the bottle from his room. And he took four dozen ringlets back to And filled it up with whale-oil. I suppose camp with him. The other girls were al• Samuel's sons never stoop to such atroci¬ ways plaguing him for curls, and it kept the ties?" poor lad's head shaven tight. He was al• "His grandsonsstray , occasionally. Lit• ways having colds in his head. But he tle Samuel-—The Infant Samuel, they call hated to say no." him at Yale-—stampeded the Freshman "'The other girls!"' The mistress sat banquet at Wherry's with a fake bomb, quite rigid. "Then he sent locks to other last week. Little Samuel is the image of young ladies-—besides myself?" his grandfather. Remember that curly red "D-dozens of em. To girls he'd never head?" even seen, his comrades' sisters and cousins The mistress's lips quivered into a shy and sweethearts. Oh, Barby, don't look smile. so shocked! All the soldier boys did it. "I remember that curly red head quite I've heard Sam tell how the whole regiment well. Perhaps Samuel has never told you, used Irving Cobb's tintype, because he was Molly. But we- -we carried on a corre• the handsomest man in the service. They spondence all through the war, from the used eleven hundred copies one year." day he left college with his regiment. And The mistress returned the fond memento he sent me a lock of his hair---" to its case with unnecessary vim. Mrs. Brinckerhoff jumped. A wave of "Well! If I'd dreamed----!" pink streamed to her crisp pompadour. "There, Barby! Don't be so techy. " Crabbed Age and Youth " 111

Think how you treated poor Samuel! What "That reminds me, I want to build a gym• about John? There, now!" nasium for them, Barby. Like the one I What about John! gave Burnbrae." The mistress caught up the album and The Mistress twinkled again. turned hastily to her chest. A lovely "A gymnasium! Molly, do you remem• flame-pink glowed in her cheek; her eyes ber how we two used to sweep our own room, grew veiled and soft. and carry up wood, and even split our kin• "Molly Eliza, did you ever see this be• dling-—except when somebody else did it fore?" for us?" She held out a mass of rosy, changeable "Oh, and wasn't it fun!" Mrs. Brinck• silk, brocaded in huge palm leaves. An in• erhoff's round face shone. "Do you mind credible garment, shaped like a Titan's the fall we started to college together, driv• lamp-shade, flowing in shining billows over ing all the eighteen miles in your father's her slender arms. grand new Dearborn? I wore a purple Mrs. Brinckerhoff considered. merino, and you had a spandy new buff "I should say I had. You wore that delaine with cinnamon dots. My, weren't dress the night of the party his folks gave we fine! And the wagon bed was crammed me. Six starched and fluted petticoats; with baskets that our mothers had fixed; and a red rose in your hair. And your bod• eggs packed in oats, and a boiled ham, and ice laced so tight that I had to pin the rose a whole jar of your Aunt Emeline's ginger on for you-—Mercy, Barby! Somebody cakes, and a cheese, and honey; for board rapped. Hide it, quick!" at Oberlin was two dollars a week, and we Pale and panting, the mistress thrust the mustn't dream of such sinful extravagance. gleaming mass into the chest, and slammed And our elegant new hair trunk, lashed on down the lid as if she slammed it upon the behind. My, how my neck cricked, spyin' fragments of a murder. Then, her gentlest for fear that trunk would fall off! And dignity robing her, she trailed to the door. can't you see the walnut grove, where A soberly pretty young girl awaited her; we camped for nooning, and your father small, fair, dainty, with a sweet little gos• shot a squirrel, and broiled it over the ling face. Meekly she made her request; coals? And then the long, long white road, permission to go to the city shopping, ac• winding on through the beech woods, and companied by a chaperon. the windy red sunset beyond? Oh, Bar• Graciously the mistress gave permission. by, why can't we two drive that road With a dutiful little gosling courtesy, the again?" child tripped away. Their eyes met in wistful question. " So you let them go to the city, Barby?" Again the September wind blew in their "Yes, with a suitable chaperon. By the faces, pungent, autumn-sweet. Instinc• way! Do you remember Susan Pearmain? tively they leaned, listening. Across that That little girl is Susan's granddaughter." far unfathomable river of years, they heard " Susan Pearmain? A great, fat, blowsy the fretful call of the quail through hot, dry girl?" Mrs. Brinckerhoff chuckled. "I stubble, the long sigh of the prairie grass, should think I did. Don't I remember as it swept the wheels of the grand new seeing her eat half a pumpkin pie at a Sun• Dearborn; that endless drowsy tide of the day-school barbecue? And here comes prairie sea. her granddaughter, asking for a chaperon "And the folks in our class. Remember —H'm. I mind that when Susan and Eph Adoniram Jones? He planted fruit-trees first married and went to Nebraska, Susan through the woods, like Johnny Appleseed." used to shoo Indians off her front porch "And Lissy Hunt. She married a mis• with a rolling-pin. She wasn't more than sionary to Ceylon. She and her lisp and seventeen, then, but she didn't need a chap• her curls-—and her spruce gum! Did any• eron for that. Pull out that silk again. I body ever see Lissy and that gum apart! want to see. My, my, that waist! Do you S'pose she taught the natives to chew gum let your girls wear party dresses like that?" too?" The mistress twinkled. "And little fat Drusilla Weed. She was "Not in these athletic days. You could so bashful she couldn't recite her declen• hardly bribe a girl to try that bodice on." sions without pigeon-toeing. She went " IT doesn't pinch. NOT a mite."—Page 114 down to Georgia after the war and started Again that swift irradiation gleamed on a Freedmen's School, and the Ku Klux the mistress's tranquil face. She would burned her out twice, but she'd set right to not meet her friend's eyes. and build it up again. Little scared, plucky, Mrs. Brinckerhoff looked keenly at that fat thing! And Peter D. Freeman. His flushed, musing face, that lovely, drooping father was a Grahamite. poor boy. They head. Suddenly her fine old face grew never had anything to eat at home but raw very white. A curious tension narrowed her meal, and apples, and water. My, how steady mouth. he used to enjoy pork-and-bean night at "Barby, there's something I want to tell Oberlin! He was the smartest scholar in you. Something I ought to have told you our class. Unless-—it was-—John." . . . forty years ago. But I never did. " Crabbed Age and Youth " 113

I've let it stand between us all these years. out of the dust. For I was mad over John, Something about-—John." Molly. From the first hour. I'd have fol• Then the mistress wheeled and faced her, lowed him barefoot through the world. blazing, passionate. Her wide eyes dark• But he was so splendid, so far above me, ened. Her hands clenched, cold. that I couldn't believe he really loved me. "Something about John? You need not And I wanted to be so sure! Little goose tell me, Molly. We always understood that I was, I kept trying him, testing him, each other, John and I." pushing him away. . . . No wonder it "I know." Mrs. Brinckerhoff's face nearly killed me to see him look at any• grew older, strangely gentle. She tried to body else!" speak. The words would not come. The There was a silence. mistress confronted her, moveless. Her "You poor little simpleton! To throw pale lips set. Between the two women away all those years!" there seemed to rise a mysterious wall: The mistress drooped like a scolded child. shadowy, intangible; impassable as a wall "I know. Wasn't I foolish! Wicked, of ice. too. And I was punished, Molly. For, Mrs. Brinckerhoff put out her hands, with after we were really engaged at last, we had a quavering laugh. to wait, and wait in earnest, till John could "Don't look at me that way, Barby. I get his start. Six long years! Yes, I was ought to have told you long ago. It has punished." been a sore spot for us both. And it was Mrs. Brinckerhoff looked on her with ten• all my hateful silliness. But-—but I was der mother-eyes. dreadfully put out with you that year. "But it was worth waiting for. Wasn't Because you had more beaux than I had. it, Barby?" My brother Samuel, and both the Jones "Worth waiting for!" The mistress boys, and John too. It truly wasn't fair, locked her frail old hands. The great be• Barby. And you led them a dance. trothal pearl shone white on the veined 'Specially John. He was desperately in waxen flesh. All the ecstasy of her brief, love with you, and you snubbed him cruelly. exquisite wifehood glowed upon her, lumi• And, poor boy, he took me for his confi• nous, transfiguring. Old and frail and child• dante. He was forever tagging me about, less; yet she stood there, lovely with the to tell me how wonderful you were, and I loveliness of an embodied hope, crowned, got some tired of it. So-—I let you think triumphant. For her and for her lover the he liked me-—a little. I liked him myself, great stars had been lighted. Their ra• anyway." diance could never quite go out, their glory "Yes," pondered the mistress, quite dim. without mercy. "Yes; I know you did." The elder woman leaned to her. Silently Mrs. Brinckerhoff swallowed hard. She their lips met, across the fading shadow of spoke unflinching on. that childish barrier. "So I-—I pretended. Right along. At last Mrs. Brinckerhoff broke the si• Though he never gave me a thought. Ex• lence with a sad little laugh. cept when you had a contrary streak, and "Ah, well, you had it all, Barby! And wouldn't write to him. Then I'd get a I have my children. I ought to be content. frantic scrawl, begging for news of you. But I'm not. For Elizabeth and Richard And then I'd obligingly tell you, what a nice are both so wise and grave and grown up, letter I'd had from John. Oh, I should and they think, just because I'm past have been smacked and set in a corner. I seventy, that I ought to stay in the chimney- know that. But it wasn't fair, Barby. corner and knit. And I just won't. There, You with four beaux, and I with only three, now!" and one of them James J. Duckworth! "And you just sha'n't!" The mistress And you just more than crowing over me!" hugged her belligerently. "Much they She stopped, gulping. Angry tears know about it! You're younger and pret• stormed into her blue eyes. tier than Elizabeth ever dared be, this min• The mistress caught her arm. ute. What wouldn't I give to see you in "Crow? Of course I did. I had to! that peach barege with flounces that you It was my one chance to keep my own head wore to our class-night party! And your 114 " Crabbed Age and Youth " little tiny feet in clocked stockings and mere burlesque. Standing here in the peach satin shoes! Look, Molly. Here!" faded robes of their youth, it was as if they She snatched a silver-paper roll from the threw down the gauntlet to all the golden chest. Mrs. Brinckerhoff cried out, de• promises of youth . . . then paid their lighted. There lay two satin slippers, challenge in full, with noble, ripened hopes; vivid pink, their gilded buckles hardly with brave and lovely years. tarnished. And as they stood, glowing, mirth• "I gave them to you! Because you ful-eyed, across the park there echoed were so bewitched with them. I'd for• an ominous note: a distant, summoning gotten." bell. "Could you squeeze them on, Molly?" "Oh, oh! The first Vespers bell! I al• "Well, I'd hope so." With a daring ways preside. And-—Oh, look at me!" fling of silken skirts, Mrs. Brinckerhoff tore Panic-smitten, the mistress stared at her off her sedate boot. Puffing and tugging, frivolous image. Frenzied, she tore off her she crowded her plump foot into the slipper. billowing finery. "It's all your fault, Molly "You haven't a shoe-horn? No, they're Eliza. You-—you Ninkum! To come here perfectly comfortable. They always were and turn my silly head, talking old times! too large. Nonsense. It doesn't pinch. Oh, oh, where is the button-hook!" Not a mite. Where's your pink silk? "There, take this hairpin." Mrs. Brinck• Look!" erhoff struggled madly to escape her Twinkling, her plump cheeks scarlet, smothering flounces. "How did we get she threw off her rigorous tailored gown, in to the wretched things! Oh, Barby, and struggled into the wide swirling robe. in pity's name, take this hook out of my Flowing skirts held high, she swept a daz• hair!" zling courtesy to the enchanted mistress. Blindly they flung on decorous garments. "Molly, you darling! Wait!" Themis- Wild-eyed, they fled down the long hall. tress dived wildly into her chest. "I'm go• At the Chapel door there sounded an an• ing to dress up too. Help fasten this, guished moan. quick! And here's my sunshade, and my "Barby! I forgot! I can't sit on the hat!" Sparkling with mischief she perched platform. I've got on that miserable pink a flat straw object, the size and aspect of satin shoe!" a waffle, high on her soft braids. "Put on "Sit on the shoe, then," hissed the mis• these velvet bracelets, Molly. And this tress, grimly. "March right along!" torty-shell comb. Oh, dear, you look pre• cisely like Miss Abigail Peabody, when Seven hundred girls filed into the great, she'd dance the lancers with Captain dim Gothic hall. The organ droned Tucker. Don't you remember? She with through a mellow prelude. Fair, grave, her sausage curls, and her green morocco stately in her trailing black, the mistress shoes, and he with his brass-buttoned rose and spoke with all her tender grace, coat, and his fierce glass eye? Here, I'll her sweet spiritual authority. be the captain, and you can be Miss Abi• Beside her on the platform, majestic as gail. Turn out your toes and simper. an aged empress, sat her honored guest. Molly. Now!" Her handsome, highly colored face took on a soft, deepened flush when the mistress " ' Tirra, lirra, toora, loora, Far beyond the Northern Sea! closed her talk with a brief touching refer• ence to her visitor, and to the dear memories Flushed, laughing, they minced and of their lifelong friendship. swaggered through the quaint old steps. Seven hundred girls hearkened to the Down the middle and back again, they mistress with their unvarying, adoring awe. pranced and languished; then, with one Seven hundred girls, with faces of young- last daunting courtesy, one pompous pigeon- eyed cherubim, looked upon Mrs. Brinck• wing, they stopped short, laughing into erhoff, first with solemn admiration, then each other's eyes. with pale, young sympathy. For, at the Absurd every step had been, delicious mistress's pensive references, her plump the caricature. Yet in that masque there hand was seen to tremble on the chair-arm; glinted something finer, rarer, sweeter than a hint of tears clouded her clear, old eyes. A Woman of Maidstone 115

. . . (A twitching pang leaped through her, heaved a gusty sigh, and punched Angel a poignant terror. Warily she glanced Eyes with a powerful thumb. down. But the long skirt's safely hid the " They're two old dears. But just think! cruel pink shoe, still nipping, implacable.) Isn't it too cruelly awful to have to be old, old ladies like that?" And on the rear seat, Apple Cheek "Awful!" sorrowed Angel Eyes.

A WOMAN OF MAIDSTONE By Robert Shackleton

TO be born blind, to live for meanor gave no indication of it as she spoke thirty-six years in darkness, a good-morning. She was merely a quiet and then to look out for the and self-possessed woman. first time upon the great, From her mother's tone, in the first min• bright, glowing world-—there utes of talk, Annie understood that she was are few things more tragic, to consider me as a friend, and it was inter• more dramatic. There is awe in the very esting to notice how she gradually warmed thought of it: awe, and an infinite pity. and glowed. Yet to say this is not to express a mere Mrs. Hubbard wished me first to see how possibility; it is to speak of an actual case. much her daughter had learned while blind; In the town of Maidstone, so I learned, was whereupon Annie, with eyes shut, walked a woman who had been given this marvel• about the room with perfect ease, perhaps lous experience, and I found myself insist• more easily than when peering her way. ently wondering how she was adjusting She opened a crowded drawer of the bureau herself to the world that she had just discov• and lifted and named article after article. ered; what she was seeing, doing, thinking. "Annie knows where every single thing is Was it to her a world of phantasies or one in that bureau! And she knows every cor• which measurably fitted with her notions ner of the house!" preconceived? So I went down from Lon• "Now,read your Longfellow." And An• don to meet this woman of new sight. nie, at this, took up a book of print for the There is old-fashioned charm about blind, in Braille, and with swift deftness of much of Maidstone, but the part of the touch went over "The Old Clock on the town to which I was directed is a district of Stairs," reading aloud, with proper em• bare streets, of humble modern homes, of phasis and real feeling, as her fingers sped; small houses built close together; it is not and I think it was more than fancy that her precisely disagreeable, yet it is without at• voice quivered a little at the line: "And as tractiveness. And in one of the plain little if, like God, it all things saw." houses I found the woman of experiences-— "'Horologe' is from a French word, a little house, part of which is devoted to a meaning 'clock,'" she said calmly, in the little shop, kept by her mother, a busy, pause that followed her reading; and she earnest woman who strives hard to keep added, deprecatingly: "I read it in one of herself and her family from dependence. the notes." I explained to the mother that I had read Except in Braille, she cannot even yet of the case, and had come to Maidstone on read, except the largest of letters. Only that account, whereupon she called Annie one of her eyes has been given sight, and down from an upstairs room. that not of the most perfect. She told me Annie Hubbard; age, thirty-six; an in• that the surgeon, within some months, was telligent, quiet-faced woman, composed, to make an attempt to gain improvement; placid, self-possessed, calm. She was look• and she let me know, too, that instead of ing out upon the whole world as something assurance of gain, there was danger in this to be learned, but her appearance and de• necessary further operation, that what had 1 Hi A Woman of Maidstone been won might be lost. Yet she was no things sticking out at the sides of the head. more morbid with fear than she was elated Oh, I just wanted to run away!" with sight. Nor, throughout, was there a I asked her about automobiles. "They word of repining over the long years lost. frighten me so much!" she cried. "They There was only gratitude for being per• always seem to be coming right at me!" mitted to see the splendor of the world, and To me, throughout, the most astonishing a humble and almost unspoken hope for the feature of it was that she herself was not future. Unpretentiously brave, she was more astonished. I expected to find things equal to either fate. more pregnant of perplexity for her. But For a time, at the first, I talked with the here she was, slipping naturally into her mother rather than the daughter, to pave newly revealed environment and just taking the way for natural confidences later, and things for granted. But, after all. I re• it was pathetic to see that Annie, so far from flected, it is essentially the same with all of feeling that her remarkable experience gave us, for we all take the wonders of nature her the right to be noticed and made much and of science for granted, and it would be of, felt a humbleness in very wonder that the extreme of unfairness to demand con• she should be given any particular atten• tinued cries of amazement from Annie tion at all. Hubbard. One comes quickly to the limi• Some cattle were driven past the window. tations of human feeling, and still more She looked intently, to be sure of identify• quickly to limitations of the expression of ing them. "Cows." she said, but more to feeling. herself than to us. And then she laughed. Her first desire, she told me, after learn• " Mother has always been afraid of cows," ing that the hospital surgeon had some she said. "They are often driven through hopes of giving her sight, was to see her the streets and mother always wants to get father and mother, and she grieved that her right over a hedge. But I always say to father died before sight came. her: 'Don't be afraid, mother; they won't After quite a while I suggested that she hurt us; you know, nothing will hurt blind go out with me into the town, and she people.'" eagerly expressed her delight, but-—hav• Throughout, her command of language ing in darkness learned the restraints of and her choice of words were astonishing. womanhood-—turned to her mother fur And for much of the time I could almost approval. have believed, had I not known to the con• She was in a flutter of expectation as we trary, that I was talking with one who had started off. It was the first time since gain• always had normal sight. ing her sight that she had been out alone She looked after the cows till they disap• with a stranger. But she astonished me by peared, and then said: "But I was always saving: "I know the town so well! When afraid of horses, though I suppose I ought I was blind I could guide people about." not to have been. It was their kicking. I Then she said: "But I never used a stick. could hear their feet striking, and the sound People don't notice you so much without a seemed to threaten something dreadful." stick." (How had she learned that?) And she added: "Do you know, horses are "And a stick isn't necessary. Don't you so much smaller than I thought! I used to always hear people when they are walking think them, oh! ever so large!" She waved toward you? And doesn't the sound tell her hand explanatorily. "I suppose it was you when you are at a corner or a crossing?" because they frightened me. They don't Assuredly, no one noticed her now, the frighten me now; not if I can see them, town being quite large enough and busy that is. But if I just hear the sound of enough for the people not to notice every their feet, and don't see them, it scares me. one on the streets, and her own bearing And it's funny about the cows, that I didn't being quite natural and unmarked. And use to be afraid of at all. For now I am how, I wondered, had she learned to be so really frightened—just as frightened as conventional and sophisticated? mother ever was!" She laughed a gentle, I found that there is much to learn from quiet laugh. "When I first saw one it was one suddenly put into the world of sight. much larger than I expected. It was a big We passed the high wall of a school-yard. tall thing, all hairy, and there were two "The boys are drilling in there," she said, A Woman of Maidstone 117 and indeed there was the sound of soft- ing past, and she drew in her breath with shuffling steps, hardly perceptible above excitement. "It seems so wonderful to the noise of the rattling of wagons on the see him sitting so quiet and going so fast." cobble-stones. And then, as another wagon went by: "It "There are so many people!" she ex• seems so strange that the little wheels go claimed, in an awed murmur. just as fast as the big; but of course I have And after some dubitative moments she been told-—" a little shamefaced lest she went on: " I don't understand much about should be deemed too ignorant. people yet, so mother tells me, for I don't Continually recurrent to my mind were judge at all by faces. Faces all seem to the words of garrulous old Pepys: "To look so much alike! Clothes are different, Maydstone, which I had a mighty mind to but I don't know about them yet, except see, having never been there; and walked whether they are ragged or not. And I all up and down the town"—for here was don't understand how to tell the rich from one who had an infinitely greater desire the poor. I judge people altogether by the to see Maidstone than had the diary-mak• sound of the voice." ing official of King Charles. And Pepys, Some of her remarks were in response to I remembered, mounted to the top of the suggestions from me, but most of them came church tower, and wrote that he found naturally from the sense of communicative there "a noble view"; and it was a sugges• companionship. tion to me—for what would this long-blind The busy streets were a constant fascina• woman think of that view? It was cer• tion. There was such amazing multiplicity tainly worth trying for. of objects, such plethora of things to see. It is a charming church, five centuries old, "At the very first, when I would wake in set in the midst of grass and shrubs and the morning, I would begin to think what I flowers beside the quiet river that goes by should see that day for the first time! I in a great sweeping bend. "The river is would decide: 'To-day it will be a dog, or so pretty," said Annie. "But I used to a new shop-window, or a new color.' Oh! think it would be very dark!" A boat it was so exciting! Some things came easy. came into sight, around the curve, and I Tables and chairs I knew almost at once. looked at her to see if she was surprised at I had so often touched them that I almost the apparition. But she only looked at it knew them. One morning 1 would study quietly for a moment and said, like a pupil out the pattern of the wall-paper. Another, giving an answer to a question: "Boat." I would find myself studying the pattern And in a few moments: "I know boats—I of the counterpane. When I first saw the have touched them." counterpane I was astonished!" We turned toward the church and she We went on silently; then: "I haven't approached it with gentle awe. Passing really learned, yet, what people mean by beneath the trees of the church-yard, she 'ugly,'" she said; "nothing seems to dis• touched with her fingers the leaves of a low- appoint me." hanging branch. "I feel as if my fingers Her certainty of step was astonishing. will always be my eyes," she said. She moved with spirit, with eager expecta• There were flowers, and she bent toward tion. There was nothing doubtful or tim• them fondly, lovingly. " I so longed to see orous. She was every moment alert, every flowers!" She knew them all as she touched moment on the watch for something new. them, and geraniums she knew by sight. I have seen the same manner in eager tour• We walked slowly on through the church• ists seeing Europe for the first time—and yard, and I noticed that she said not a word this was a woman seeing the world for the of the gravestones. first time. "Next to seeing father and mother, my "People are larger than I expected," she greatest wish was to see this church," she remarked; and then her attention went said. "But I never really thought I could again to the vehicular variety in the streets. see it!" It had been her own church, and "Do you know, it seems so strange to see many and many a time she had sat there the wagon wheels going round. I don't and listened in darkness to the service. know exactly why-—it seems strange," she We entered, and the silent hush of it all added, shyly. A bicycle rider went whirl• seemed to affect her deeply. She walked 118 A Woman of Maidstone to the pew in which she had so often sat. what she ought to feel on the top of a church She told me of how sweet and sad the music tower. She was awed, and her face flushed, had sounded, and of how it seemed just as and she breathed a little more quickly, and sad even now, though she could not under• turned now in one direction, and now in stand why, for everything ought to seem another. joyful to her. I knew that she could not see very much We sat together for a while, in the dim of the view; it must have been to her a sort cool building, and then I suggested going of glorified indistinctness, in the mild glitter to the top of the ancient tower. of sunlight. She gave a gasp of joy. "Oh!" she After the first moments of deep-breathed breathed. And then: "Will you really, wonder she began eagerly to try to pick out really take me up there?" It made me what she could, with her still defective sight feel ashamed, to think how easily a pleasure and her inexperience. She said nothing of may be given to those whose pleasures have a few rooks circling gracefully; she said been few. nothing of a few flying and fleecy clouds. She was almost frightened as we entered But she slowly studied the trees, which she the narrow stairway and began to ascend was looking at for the first time from above, the winding steps of stone. But she put and with a little laugh of satisfied triumph her hand in mine and in a moment went exclaimed: "Trees! Those must be trees! on with absolute confidence, though it was But before, they have looked like tall things too dark to see well even had her sight been with sticks standing out, and now they look perfect. so different!" Constantly, I was amazed She went up and up, keenly pleased, at her vocabulary and the correctness with keenly anticipatory of what she was to find which she used it. in the undiscovered country at the top. "What is that white thing?" she asked; Nearing the summit, I stopped at the bell- and when I said it was the bridge she room, and told her that there the bells were nodded comprehendingly: "I know it very hanging, each with its dangling rope. Her well; I've often been over it." pleasure was pathetic. She stepped inside There was higher ground, rising indis• the room and went from bell to bell, touch• tinctly in the haze of distance, beyond the ing them, each in turn. "You see, I still town, and she looked long toward it, as if see with my lingers," she said, wistfully. striving to see into a remote mystery. "Are We were starting again toward the top, there hills there?" she said. And then: when the bells began to ring, and she stood "You remember that verse, 'I will lift up there in a perfect agony of joyful excite• mine eyes unto the hills'? " And I thought ment, hearing the bells as they had never I knew somewhat of what she was thinking. sounded to her before. We stepped back From suggestions now and then, I had seen into the room, and in wonder she watched that she was deeply religious and that re• them swaying as they chimed and sang. ligion was a profound comfort to her. But her intensity of emotion was almost She looked again in silence, and then, silent; there was scarcely a sound or word reminded by her verse, said: "When I left to express it. But when the bells finally the blind school, they let me choose four ceased, and the vibrant humming died books of the Bible to take home with me, away, her face was beaming with a marvel• at half price. And I thought and thought, lous happiness. "I have known the bells for they cost so much money I wanted all my life," she whispered, "but I never to choose right. They cost five shillings thought I'd be up here." apiece!—but I could have the four for ten We went on to the top and stepped out shillings. And I chose St. John—and St. upon the little square roof of the square Matthew—and Isaiah—and Revelation." tower, and she gave a cry of surprise. It There came into her face the brightness was her first experience of a wide view. that it was a pleasure to see, as she added: For a moment she was frightened, but al• " I don't understand Revelation, but I like most instantly steadied herself. it; it's such fine reading." It was a supreme experience. But she "I read a newspaper every week," she said little. Her range of ideas, her range went on, proudly. "It's a London news• of experiences, had not taught her much of paper, and a blind friend that I knew at A Woman of Maidstone 119 school takes it, and then sends it on to on the farther side of a glass show-window. me." Vegetables she could not differentiate by We went down again, and it was surpris• sight alone, but knew each kind by touch. ing how readily she picked her way. She And always, she was the eternal feminine: barely needed my hand out-stretched be• "I like to look in shop-windows!" she ex• hind me to assist her. "At the school they claimed. taught us to be as self-reliant as possible," "The buildings are so high—so high!" she said, answering my unspoken thought. she exclaimed several times, in astonish• We went out again into the streets, and ment. There was no difficulty in realizing this time to the busier ones. But even here that buildings of two or three stones must she was undisturbed. Even the electric indeed represent to her the extreme of lofti• trams did not frighten her, with their rush ness, and assuredly I left it for some one and clangor. She had been told what they else to tell her about skyscrapers. were, long before, and while blind had be• In the restaurant she was as outwardly come accustomed to their sound. That the composed as if she had been sitting in such cars were not nearly so large as she had places all her life; and again I wondered imagined them to be marked the limit of how she could have learned sophistication. her words. Evening was coming on as we turned Never, indeed, was there superlative in homeward. I wondered if the darkling expression. A thing was larger or smaller twilight bore for her a message of sinister than she had supposed; darker or lighter; menace. How could it help doing so? "At it frightened her a little or it did not—gen• school, they taught us to be as self-reliant erally not. And there was nothing that as possible," she said quietly, as she had she disliked. Everything that she could said once before to me, and as if subtly dis• see was a thing to be thankful for. cerning my unspoken fears for her. A There was much that she did not need brave woman, this, certain not to fall into to be told. She knew the chemist's shop; vain repinings even if evil should befall; she knew the green-grocer's; she knew the certain to glory forever in the splendid shoeshop. And these, without the glance of vision given her of the world—to be by the inquiry, the eager straining look—for she vision splendid, on her way attended—and knew them by smell! to be among the happiest and helpfullest I noticed that her sense of color was of the earth if the Power in which she rapidly developing, and that she was profoundly but unobtrusively believes shall especially beginning to pick out reds and utter for her the world-old dictate: Let greens. She could recognize oranges even there be light. IN THE MANSION YARD

By William Hervey Woods

THERE'S no need now to look about my feet, Or lift a cautious chair, But uses of old years my senses cheat, And still I think him there,

Along the hearth-rug stretched, in full content, Fond of the fire as I-— Ah! there were some things with the old dog went I had not thought could die.

The flawless faith mankind not often earn Nor give, he gave to me. And that deep fondness in his eyes did bum Mine own were shamed to see.

And though to men great Isis Isis is But while she wears her veil, This love looked on my stark infirmities Life-long, and did not fail.

And is it clean gone? Nay, an Indian's heart Have I, and even in heaven, If heaven be mine, I pray some humble part To earth-joys may be given-—

Far down the ringing streets, some quiet yard, Drowsy with afternoon And bees, with young grass dandelion-starred, And lilacs breathing June-—

Across whose mossy walls the rolling psalms, Like dream-songs, come aloud, Shall float, and flying angels vex our calms No more than flying cloud—

Some nook within my Father's House, where still He lets me hide old toys, Nor shames me even if foolish Memory will Play with long laid-by joys.

There may my friend await, as once on earth, My step, my hand's caress, And naught of Heaven-town mingle with our mirth But everlastingness. THE POINT OF VIEW

F it is true, as has been so often asserted, rather than a practical demonstrator of the that we bring away from a book prac• art, and Mrs. Todgers is her undeniable pro• I tically what we take to it, it is easy to totype. see why most critics have overlooked that Dickens seems to stand alone in making one of Dickens's characteristics which looms his plot develop by means of cooking, meals, largest before me when I think of my own and household tasks. Despite his delight• row of dog-eared volumes. The ful pages where Bella Wilfer administers a majority of critics have not taken knock both figurative and literal to the long years of house-keeping to his "Complete British Housewife," the cook• novels, and they have brought no house• book of his day, he himself is often as explicit keeping away. They could never feel the about matters of food as the cooking man• keen delight of stopping in the midst of a uals of the present year of grace. In nearly morning's dusting to snatch a friendly copy all his longer stories someone's house-keeping of the Beloved Boz from the shelves in order is carefully, not always agreeably, delineated to extract from his inexhaustible stores a and its influence upon the home is given full recipe for a rechauffe, a prescription for a emphasis. His two most famous house-keep• tonic, a suggestion for a menu, a hint on the ers are those that might be denominated management of servants, a warning against destructive housewives-—Home Wreckers-— personal incompetence, or an inspiration to Mrs. Jellyby, the Inefficient, and Dora all the housewifely virtues. These are all Copperfield, the Incompetent. The key• to be found there, and every novel-loving note to Mrs. Jellyby's house-keeping is dis• housewife knows that romance and house• order, and it requires a full half-page to keeping are as inextricably interwoven in enumerate the conglomeration of hetero• his books as in the pages of the modern geneous articles collected in one of her women's magazines. closets. Whenever I open at this page, I in• If his intense interest in house-keeping rep• variably cast everything else aside and de• resented some special movement of his age, vote the day to the cleaning of cupboards! I should marvel less, but the attitude of his Dora and her house-keeping, superintended contemporaries puts this theory to rout. I by Jip, is one of the most pathetic histories remember that George Eliot spent hours in in any literature, yet when I realize what the dairy, and I look for traces of her experi• material havoc Dora wrought I almost for• ence in her novels, but I find that most get her pathos in my haste to make my own famous of housewives, Mrs. Poyser, giving account-books balance. A thorough study no specific advice about household matters, of these two characters would, I believe, do and confining herself to frequent scoldings more for the future happiness of any Young- about the delinquencies of the "gells," scold• Woman-About-To-Be-Married than an en• ings of no practical service to the present- tire course in that comparatively new branch day reader tossing on a troubled domestic which the students call "Dom Econ;" and sea. I recall that Thackeray, the social regis• here one great artist might outweigh several trar, described many a formal dinner and exact scientists. "swarry," but I turn his pages only to dis• In direct contrast to these are the beau• cover that Miss Fotheringay, cleaning her tiful portraits of two constructive house• white satin slippers with bread crumbs, is wives—-Home Builders-—Agnes Wickfield, one of his few incidents which could be the Efficient, and Esther Summerson, the adapted to human nature's daily needs. I Competent-—and in both cases their vocation admit that Meredith has given us one im• is continually suggested by the introduction mortal house-keeper, Mrs. Berry, "that bunch of a bunch of keys. When David first sees of black satin," who assures us that "kissin' Agnes she has a "little basket trifle hanging don't last. Cookery do"; but Mrs. Berry at her side with keys in it," and these keys is remembered as a culinary philosopher appear again and again all through the nar- 121 122 The Point of View

rative until its happy climax when she looks arms, she is dreaming of the furniture in the down at them and says, "They seem to jingle new nursery. a kind of old tune!" Esther Summerson's The supreme use, perhaps, which Dickens first experience at Bleak House is the pres• makes of cookery is where the romance actu• entation of the keys, and after this they are ally turns upon the concoction of a beef• constantly in evidence while she is portrayed steak pie. Peggotty was famous for her as the busy young house-keeper, making lists beefsteak pie, and it was a favorite dish of of her preserves, balancing her neat accounts, Vincent Crummies, but with Ruth Pinch serenely pursuing her household tasks, until and John Westlock it becomes the tissue to the most casual reader they eventually from which love is woven. When I open at become the symbol of tender household min• this passage, I lay down my duster and istrations. I know of no better incentive to hasten to the pantry, hoping and expecting order and devotion in home life than the to find Cupid perched on the bread-board or example of these two young women. hovering over the flour-barrel. Thus far They are not the only instances, however, his actual presence has not been vouchsafed for all through the books we catch glimpses me, but I feel that I have found something of successful and attractive housewifery. just as valuable. There is Traddles's Sophy," the dearest girl!" No! It was no mere chance that prompted "her punctuality, economy and order!" Dickens to call his magazine "Household there is Betsy Trotwood, washing the tea• Words." He was and is saturated with cups and folding the cloth; there is gentle them, and the youngest housewife may per• Florence Dombey sweeping the hearth at ceive this more clearly than the oldest critic. Captain Cuttle's; there is pretty Mary roll- ling the rugs with some aid from Sam Weller, and there are many, many more. On al• AVE you not noticed, in our current most every page food is served in one form literature, the wide-spread epidemic of or another, and some of the most distin• H dashes that has broken out upon the guished characters are introduced through printed page? In books and in periodicals it the medium of a meal. Mrs. Jarley, Dolly is alike prevalent; treatise, essay, and story Varden, Mrs. Maylie and Rose, the Father of are equally subject to it. I sometimes wonder, the Infant Phenomenon, and Mr. F.'s Aunt, in picking up one of the more popular maga• all make their initial entrances at the table. zines, if an editorial fiat has gone forth that no There is a continuous performance of tea tale shall be accepted unless it con- drinkings. Over the Squeers's teacups, Nicho• tains at least one dash to each sen• las Nickleby meets John Browdie; with the tence. Do they pay by the dash, one wonders, aid of the teapot Mrs. Harris's fate is forever as the eye follows gap and hiatus in line after settled; in a tea-room Flora Casby makes line and column after column? True, these her great confession to Little Dorrit; steep• blank spaces often constitute the best part of ing the fragrant leaves the Heeps first assert the page, and the grateful eye sometimes rests their oppressive humbleness, and "with a upon them with relief, but so plentiful and so little more flip" in her cup Mrs. Micawber unnecessary are they that one wonders if they avers that she "will never desert Mr. point to a gradual but sure elimination of the Micawber." text itself, in deference to a generation whose Through "Our Mutual Friend" more animal energies so far outstrip the mental. than all, are carried two great domestic Are we going back to that long howl or bark, strands. From the beginning to the end of innocent of words and of ideas, which Mr. the book the Handford-Hexam murder mys• Jesperson, in a learned essay, assures us was the origin of human speech? tery is expanded by the discussions at the Veneering dinner-parties under the shadow The dashes are of as many kinds as are the of the "camels." The romance of the fas• kinds of style that they decorate. Most com• cinating Bella Wilfer, on the other hand, mon, perhaps, is the dash of inexpressible from the time she first appears as a wilful emotion. girl, tossing her curls, until she becomes the " 'Real love is-—'" she broke off and re• Mendicant's Bride, is developed in a series turned suddenly to her light tone. . . . of purely domestic scenes. When she finally " 'Don't you know-—haven't you seen-—that leaves us, the Inexhaustible Baby in her -—that I've always loved you?' The Point of View 123

" 'It doesn't seem as if it could be a real, straightforward sentences? For the amiable grown-up love- ' mental processes of Richard Meynell no such "Their eyes met and glanced away. device is needed to suggest complex mental• " 'Can't you understand ' ity, and seeing his plain thoughts thus tricked " 'You are sorry you said it. You would out makes upon me an impression of as great take it back if you could ' " incongruity as it would to see Matthew Arnold Then there is the psychological-subtle dash. jumping rope. "These words, he was well aware, left his Any amount of extraneous material can be wife-—given her painful narrowness-—a bris• thrust into sentences so made. It is as easy as tling quiver of retorts to draw from; yet it was throwing miscellaneous articles into the waste- not without a silent surprise that he saw her, basket, and in much of the writing employing with her irritated eyes on him, extract a bolt this device the relation of the component parts of finest point. 'The pleasure then, in her is about the same. With this freedom, what view, you make out-—since you make out such mark or measure is there for the sentence? wonders-—is to be all for us only?'" Why should it ever begin or ever end? I Space forbids further quotation; one need object to this impressionist punctuation, this but turn to our more serious writers of fiction chaotic and emotional kind of expression, this to find instances innumerable of this baldly exclamatory and fragmentary thought. It is apparent, self-conscious device for securing hard to have the meaning of a sentence, just as piquant effects. you were about to grasp it, dashed away; to Closely related to the first class, the dash of have, if I may change the figure, the clew to the inexpressible emotion, possibly also, though I labyrinth break in your hands; to find your• should hardly dare suggest this, to the second self, if I may change it again, brought up class, is the plain-lazy dash. This hardly standing, with a sudden wrench, as if some one needs illustration; it confronts us everywhere. were jerking the reins, and to find all meaning Naturally, it is easier to draw a line upon the thrown violently out of your mind. When page than it is tc write out even the very ob• this happens, you naturally think that some• vious words that go with the plain-lazy style. thing in the thought has changed, and that you In all these types there is a fundamental insin• are to turn in another direction. But no! In cerity, whether the author is trying to suggest nine cases out of ten you find yourself at ex• more emotion than is really there, or to hint a actly the same point in the same old subject, deeper meaning than is in his mind. By this and you find it far harder to get back into the device he imposes upon the reader, making him rut than it would have been to stay in. You supply what the author lacks, suggesting, by lose mental confidence and grow nervous, as this hiatus and that long pause, unspeakable one who feels that a leg of the chair in which things that he may have been, but probably he is sitting may at any moment come out, or was not thinking or feeling, but which he ap• the wheel of his carriage roll independently parently hopes the reader will take the trouble away. to think and to feel. No good tailor would think of leaving an I do not object to the dash as a dash, but inch gap between sleeve and arm-hole, nor to its excessive and inappropriate use. There would a decent carpenter leave yawning pauses are places where it serves a real need, as, for between his shingles. My chief objection to instance, in the essays and the letters of the dash is that it acts as a disintegrating force Charles Lamb. When, as in his case, the upon both form and subject-matter. The in• style is full of sudden quips and cranks and tegrity of the sentence is disappearing before it, turns, it is well for the printed page to bear and with it is disappearing that skilful adjust• some device that meets the inner need. The ment of minor phrases to the main phrase charm of his thought is that it comes in flashes; which alone can achieve delicate gradations and the imaginative suggestions are so diverse and shades of meaning. The art of modifying and so various that they are best indicated by your idea and explaining it in a fashion that this symbol of sudden break. In the case of brings out the relative values of the more and the majority of those who use and over-use it, the less important parts is becoming a lost art, however, there is no such reason. What quips and the mastery of conjunctions, so marvellous and sudden turns of thought are to be found, in Newman's closely knit and logical prose, may I ask, in the prose of Mrs. Humphry has already largely disappeared. Instead of a Ward that she should thus disfigure her even, finely wrought bit of architecture, where every 124 The Field of Art atom is in its rightful place, you are given, in My wrath is greatest when I find these the typical modern sentence, a heap of rolling marks thrust into my own writing, by dashing stones, whose harsh sides grate one against editor or proof-reader, anxious to keep up with another, as the meaning scatters everywhere the times; for I have resisted temptation, have and nowhere, the little clause that might mean struggled to manipulate my adjectives, my so much in the right place tumbling over the participles, my conjunctions so that definite larger clause and so being lost to sight and design may be visible in my sentences. To sense. Of what use is our alleged modern have my careful dove-tailing torn asunder and development in complex, many-sided thought, wide spaces thrust between maddens me. if subtlety of cunning sentence-structure, Great also is my wrath when I find the ten• whereby this may be wrought out, is beyond dency working unconsciously within me, with us? Often in coming upon one of these long, the subtle temptation to escape trouble. You meaningless dashes one feels as if, in some would be distressed to know how many times, delicate triumph of architecture, one had dis• in writing down the foregoing brief remarks, I covered a sudden gap in arch or pillar. It have found myself using it, and have removed achieves the impossible, substituting a hole where it with maledictions. nothing but firmest substance would suffice. Dash take the Dash!

-THE FIELD OF ART ·

THE MUSEUM AND THE TEACHING OF highest utility. It is possible, as we know ART IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS too well, to teach something of art history N discussing the uses of the museum in by lectures and text-books without the use connection with the teaching of art, the of concrete examples; but such teaching is I most important things to consider are. pretty sure to degenerate into a teaching of first, what we mean by "the teaching of names, or about names, instead of a teach• art," and, second, what purpose is to be sub• ing about things. It is a little pathetic to served by such teaching. Of course, in the see the hunger for such teaching-—to note strict sense of the words, art cannot be taught how many people go to lectures on the his• at all. but what we ordinarily call the teach• tory of art, or read books on that history, ing of art may be classed under three heads. without ever realizing that they know noth• In the first place we can teach about art. A ing-—really nothing-—about the things of great deal of the teaching in our schools and which they are hearing or reading. colleges, a great deal that appears in books But whatever you may learn of the his• and lectures everywhere, is, I think, rather tory of art without seeing the actual ob• teaching about art than teaching art. It is jects which are the subject of that history, teaching the history of art; to some extent you can learn not at all to appreciate art the theory of art. It is a very useful kind without studying the objects themselves. of teaching in its place, and for its own ends, The best that you can get outside of a good but it is to be clearly distinguished from the museum is a limited supply of photographs other two kinds of teaching-—the teaching or of illustrations in books-—and these are a of. or the assistance and encouragement in, very poor substitute. One really good pict• the appreciation of art, which is the rarest ure of almost any school or epoch, one kind of teaching; and the teaching of the fragment of Greek sculpture or of Gothic use of the tools of art, which is what all carving, is a far better introduction to the teachers of drawing or of modelling are en• enjoyment of art than all of the illustra• gaged in. tions in all of the illustrated books on art Now, it is obvious that in this teaching that have been printed. In the attempt to about art-—this teaching of the history or teach appreciation the museum is not merely the theory of art-—a museum is a tool of the a valuable aid, it is an absolute necessity. The Field of Art 125

In the third form of teaching-—the teach• other hand, if a child or a young person in ing of the use of the tools of art-—the mu• the high-schools can be brought to take a seum is less obviously necessary; and as a natural and healthy interest in art-—the matter of fact such teaching, whether in concrete thing as it exists-—I think he need the professional art schools or in general not be troubled much about the theory of schools, has made little use of the museum. it. He can be allowed to take that for I think it can be shown, however, that even granted-—leaving it as a matter for the in this part of the teaching of art the uses metaphysicians and the aestheticians to of the museum are many and its facilities discuss. should be taken advantage of. Of the teaching of the history of art there As to the purpose of art teaching in our is much more that is favorable to be said; schools, I imagine it to have two principal but that teaching has also its dangers. I aims or ends. I imagine art to be taught think there is always a little danger that in the schools, first, for the sake of general in studying and in teaching the history of culture; and, second, for the training of art we shall get too much into the scientific eye and hand, and for the providing of a frame of mind-—shall get to thinking too valuable tool for use in the future life of the much of the importance of things as speci• students. mens. Thinking scientifically, rather than It is almost impossible to exaggerate the artistically, we shall classify and pigeon• importance of art teaching for the diffusion hole and come to treat a work of art as if of culture. Our general school training be• it were an insect with a pin through it. comes of necessity more and more a matter If we are to gain much for culture out of of utility. The necessarily, obviously use• the study of art we have got to know it as ful things that will help a student to gain a something alive-—not as something in a living are insisted upon; and what used to cabinet with a label on it. In studying the be called the "humanities" are perforce work of art as if it were conveniently dead, more and more neglected. We all know we are studying, in reality, archaeology how much regret has been felt and expressed rather than art, for archaeology does not at the gradual decay of the study of Greek necessarily confine itself to the study of the in our institutions of learning. Now, it work of extinct peoples. There is Egyptian seems to me that in the teaching of art there archaeology and Greek archaeology, but is a pretty good substitute for some of the there is also, nowadays, a good deal of more humane studies that are being discon• Renaissance archaeology. Even the study tinued. The tendency to do away with the of modern art may reduce itself to what one study of Greek is lamented by scholars be• may call a sort of premature archaeology. cause, they say, the Greek spirit is of the The archaeologist looks at a work of art for utmost importance to our general culture the light it throws on history or the life of and to our finer and higher education; but, man, on customs or costumes, on religion, as long as there is Greek sculpture and or a thousand other things, but he some• Greek architecture to be studied in our mu• times forgets that the one important thing seums, it seems to me we need not despair about a work of art is its beauty. We of arriving at some very tolerable notion of should remember that the teaching of art the Greek spirit. I have always been inter• history is, after all, less a branch of the ested in the story that has been told of teaching of art than a branch of the teach• Goethe, who, when he was about to write ing of history. As a branch of the teaching his "Iphigenia," wished to fill himself with of history it has very great importance; but the Greek spirit and did it, not by reading for those specifically engaged in trying to Greek tragedies, but by taking a course of get some idea of the meaning of art into the drawing from the antique. minds of the young, such teaching should The theory of art, I think, we can dismiss take a minor place. from this discussion as a thing hardly to be The important thing about a work of art, taught in the ordinary schools. The theory then, for us is not its country or its date, or of art, or what we know as aesthetics, is a the name of its author-—not its authen• branch of metaphysics-—a thing only to be ticity or any other fact about it-—the im• understood or enjoyed by very advanced portant thing is its beauty. If it have not students-—by mature minds. And, on the beauty it is useless for our purpose, however 126 The Field of Art authentic and interesting it may be as a many teachers of literature produce-—the specimen. And that is one of the things result of making the pupils hate the best that makes it necessary to use a museum things forever. My notion would be to with discretion-—for a museum necessarily take the horse to water, but not at first to contains a good many specimens which have try too hard to make him drink. Take the their interest of one or another sort, but children to the museum. Let them range which are not beautiful. They may not be a little. See what they like. Find out, if beautiful, possibly, because the whole art you can, whether they really like anything; of a certain period or school was unbeauti¬ and when they like something, find out why. ful; or they may be unbeautiful because Then, it seems to me, if you can find out they are the inferior works of a given period why any child or young person has liked a or the failures of a particular artist. But particular work of art, you can begin to the things which in themselves intrinsically point out the quality he has liked in other possess beauty are the only things which things, in better form and in higher degree; should interest us. If it have real beauty and you can gradually produce a very de• it does not much matter when a work of art cided impression on the taste of the student. was made, or where or by whom it was To this end we must specially guard made-—its beauty is its reason for existence; against the old error of thinking of art as a and the best we can do for the young people thing made up of pictures in gold frames and over whom we may have an influence is to statues standing on pedestals. We must try to encourage, and as far as possible to not forget the great number and variety of train, their appreciation of the beautiful. objects collected in a museum of art, and It is, therefore, the second kind of art leach• the genuinely artistic nature of almost all ing, the training in the appreciation of art, of these objects. Take, for example, a col• that is most important for our first purpose lection of musical instruments, and I can -—that of the diffusion of culture. imagine a sense of line being awakened for Now, it is not an easy thing to do-—to the first time by the study of these instru• train the appreciation of art. As far as it ments, just as I can imagine a sense of color can be done at all it can be done in a mu• being awakened by the study of the deep seum, and hardly anywhere else; and it be• tones and rich glazes of some piece of orien• comes of the utmost importance, therefore, tal pottery. that relations between the museums and the In the first place, many of these things, by schools should be systematic, and should be their associations, are more likely to interest kept constantly in view. the young than the pictures and the statues I should like not only to see regular trips -—certainly than the statues. And, in the to the museum at certain intervals by classes second place, I am not at all sure that the under the direction of their teachers, but I purely artistic sensations cannot be given should like to see the school children en• more directly by some of these works of couraged to go to the museum of their own minor art than by works of painting or volition-—to go in their spare hours and on sculpture, because the artistic element is less their holidays. I should like to see some entangled with the question of representa• reason given to them to do this; some ques• tion. When we look at a picture we are in• tion asked them that they could there find evitably thinking somewhat of the subject; an answer for. I should like to see any• we are inevitably thinking of the things thing done that might tend to give them the represented, and the color of the picture, as museum habit-—a habit which is lamentably color, does not come to us with anything life lacking in a large class of well-to-do and the force and the clearness and simplicity well-educated people. of appeal that it might have coming from But I think it might be rather dangerous some oriental plaque. So with beauty of to try to give too much direction at first to line, which it is hard to disentangle from these young people. I can imagine that if representation, but which is entirely dis• one took a class through the rooms of a connected with representation in the fine good museum, carefully pointing out the forms of a musical instrument or of a best things and explaining why they should beautiful piece of furniture. Therefore, in be admired and why they are the best, one trying to cultivate artistic appreciation in might readily produce the result that a good the young, I should, especially in the begin- The Field of Art 127 ning, allow them a wide range of choice of the training of the sense of form. The subject, trying, little by little, to lead them whole tendency of the study of landscape is to a finer, higher appreciation of the quali• necessarily toward the perception of color, ties they had first shown a liking for, tak• of light and shade, and of effect, and toward ing them from the line of a fiddle neck to the neglect of the precise study of form. the line of a drawing by Botticelli, and from Whatever may be proper for the education the color of a tile to the color of a Titian. of the artist, I am quite certain that for the If this could be done-—if the pupils of our education of the artisan, and for the general public schools could be brought frequently training of eye and hand which is good for to a museum and encouraged to come oftener every one, any impressionistic work, any by themselves until they became pretty work that attempts "effect" or concerns familiar with its contents, there seems to be itself with the subtleties and intricacies no real reason why, in a few years, such of light, is work in a mistaken direction. pupils should not have a really sounder, Therefore, as far as the teaching of drawing better-based, and more cultivated taste in in the public schools is concerned, I should the fine arts than many of the members of say at once, don't try to connect this teach• our highly educated classes. ing of drawing with pictures, or even to any The third form of the teaching of art, the great extent with figure sculpture. What teaching of the use of the tools of art, re• you want for the kind of study of drawing duces itself, for our purpose, practically to that is necessary to the training of eye and the teaching of drawing. I do not think hand, and to the forming of a useful tool, is painting can be profitably taught in our pub• something precise, definite, and simple in its lic schools, and I shall not now consider the forms. There can be nothing better for the teaching of modelling, though much of what purposes in view than the study of ornament I shall say of the teaching of drawing would and of the minor and decorative arts—-the apply to the other study. This form of art arts of pottery and furniture and the like-— teaching is especially fitted to promote the and good material for that kind of study may second of our aims, the training of eye and be found in the museum. For the future hand and the providing of a useful tool for use of the pupil he has no need of effect, of the life work of the student. Drawing as a mystery, of all that impressionism deals training of eye and hand is a kind of physical with. What he wants is a tool that will culture. It sharpens the senses, broadens lend itself to the mastery of concrete facts. the powers, and stimulates the observation He wants to be able to see what the shapes and the intelligence, making of the student of things and the makes of things are, and a finer and every way more efficient being for his general training it is even more im• than he could become without it. Drawing portant that he should learn to see the facts is also, in many walks of life, an indispen• of form and construction before thinking of sable tool, and I can imagine no walk of life effect. Let the teacher, therefore, discour• in which the power of expressing oneself age anything more than clear outline draw• with lines might not occasionally be of the ing, with a minimum of light and shade, utmost service. Therefore, I consider the making the attainment of exact proportion teaching of drawing a most important part and construction the principal aim. of a good general education. It is to be remembered that many of the Now, the highest possible material for the pupils in the public schools are likely to prac• study of drawing is undoubtedly the human tise one or another trade or handicraft in figure; but I take it that very few of the which not only will drawing be useful to pupils in our schools are at all likely to be• them, but in which a knowledge of what has come professional artists, and I am quite been done in the past in the way of artistic certain that the amount of time which can handicraft will also be of inestimable advan• be given to the teaching of drawing in the tage. Now, such things, for instance, as schools is utterly insufficient for any useful the beautiful furniture and mural decora• attempt at the mastery of the human figure. tions of the eighteenth century can only be Therefore, I should eliminate at once from really understood by drawing them; and such teaching any attempt to draw the for the general cultivation of the pupils, for human figure, cither from life or from casts providing them with that power to draw, or copies. Landscape is poor material for which will be a useful tool for them, and for 12S The Field of Art the incidental gaining of some real under• among them to study the objects in the standing of the various styles of historic or• museum without drawing at all-—simply nament and of some appreciation of the making mental notes and deciding upon the beauty of workmanship to be found in work height and width and construction of the in the minor and decorative arts of past thing on its form and on its ornament; and times, I should wish that all classes in draw• then I should ask them to make their draw• ing connected with our public schools should ing in the absence of the model, at school or have a certain regular allotment of time for at home, returning as often as necessary to work in the museum, where, instead of draw• the museum to correct their impressions, ing from insignificant objects or from copies but never touching the drawing in the of one sort or another, they should be able presence of the object. In working either to draw from really fine specimens of deco• from memory of a previous drawing, or from rative art. direct memory of the object itself, the stu• One thing more as to the methods of such dent should, of course, have the aid of the in• study and I shall have done. I think in structor in comparing his work with the orig• almost all modern study of art there is a inal in the museum, and should be shown lamentable neglect of the training of the where his drawing is wrong, and what is the memory. But perhaps even more than to nature and the importance of his mistakes. the artist is it essential to the artisan that I do not believe that every one can learn his memory be trained. Certainly a stone• to draw. I think there are people without cutter should be able to carve an acanthus eye as there are people without ear. There leaf "out of his head," and not have to go are people who will never draw, just as there and look it up somewhere, and a wood- are people who will never be able to play carver should surely "know by heart" most an air by ear or from memory. But such a of the ornamental forms he is in the habit course of training the eye and the hand by of employing. I should feel that half the drawing from objects of decorative art, and value of a sound training in drawing was of training the memory by constant prac• lost if it were not made to include a train• tice of the sort here recommended-—all this ing of the memory as well as of the eye and done definitely and decisively, without hand. Therefore, in working with a class sketching and scrawling, or impressionistic of pupils in drawing in a museum, my idea treatment of light and shade, but with a would be to set them to drawing selected constant insistence upon clear statement of objects in the museum, and then to ask them form-—such a course should put into the to reproduce these drawings from memory hands of some considerable part of the class when away from the objects. As the pupils a fundamentally better and more generally became more used to the work and more available knowledge of drawing than is pos• able to analyze and to remember the forms sessed by many a well-known artist to-day. of things, I should set the more advanced KENYON Cox.

Important notice

As mentioned at the very start of this issue, this magazine is one of five incomplete issues in the MJP’s collection of Scribner’s Magazine. In the original hard copy, the back advertising pages would begin at this point, running on for many pages, and ultimately followed by the back cover.